Re:Sputtering Startups Weigh on U.S. Economic Growth
by dredmorbius on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @01:51AM
(#12785617)
Childhood mortality has to have imposed a tremendous selective pressure, on both the immune system and general congenital defects. I've been reflecting on what lifting this selective pressure means. Also on the fact that this lifting is nonuniform across cultures -- infants in less-developed nations are still subject to most of these effects.
That said: most of the improvement is through public health measures (clean drinking water, sewerage systems, municipal waste collection) and nutrition. Heroic measures are very much the outlier. That may be an even stronger argument against them -- other than as a learning experience, the resources they consume relative to providing much more basic, and effective, outcomes interventions is difficult to defend.
From the CDC: Infant mortality in the US <1 year was "up to" 30% in 1900. Maternal mortality was around 0.8% in 1900.
That said: most of the improvement is through public health measures (clean drinking water, sewerage systems, municipal waste collection) and nutrition. Heroic measures are very much the outlier. That may be an even stronger argument against them -- other than as a learning experience, the resources they consume relative to providing much more basic, and effective, outcomes interventions is difficult to defend.
From the CDC: Infant mortality in the US <1 year was "up to" 30% in 1900. Maternal mortality was around 0.8% in 1900.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4838a2.htm