International comparisons of longevity should adjust for race. The summary above mentions that Japanese live 3 years longer than Americans, but Asian-Americans have long life expectancies in the U.S.
From the HHS: "It is significant to note that Asian American women have the highest life expectancy (85.8 years) of any other ethnic group in the U.S. Life expectancy varies among Asian subgroups: Filipino (81.5 years), Japanese (84.5 years), and Chinese women (86.1 years)."
what is the expectancy for 65 year olds?
Good post. It is also important to note that the murder and accident rates are higher for the U.S. that many of its peers, thus contributing to the lower life expectancy.
America’s life expectancy is not 50 years old.
Neither is Japan’s at age 53.
I don’t know where they’re getting their numbers, but it smells like it came from a bull’s manure pile.
According to Wikipedia (not very accurate, but they refer to sources for this):
Japan’s life expectancy is 82 years, *NOT* 53 as claimed in this article.
Likewise, America’s life expectancy is 78 years, *NOT* the 50 previously claimed.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy
The relatively low life expectancy in the US is almost entirely due to the fact that many infant deaths that would note be reported in other countries are recorded in this country as infant deaths, which greatly increases our statistical infant mortality rate. In most other countries, if a child does not live more than a few hours, it is counted as stillborn or miscarried, which does not effect infant mortality or life expectancy figures. In China, the child must live for three days to be counted.
In the US, on the other hand, extraordinary measures are taken to save children who might not even be breathing at birth. These children, if they do not survive, are still considered live births, are issued birth certificates, and are considered to have died at a very young age.
If one removes this distortion from the statistics, infant mortality and life expectancy rates in the United States compare favorably with almost any country on Earth.
This has been posted before and I remember there being some sort of trickery used by the WHO to get those numbers. I just can’t remember what it was. Unfortunately I’m not on my own machine so can’t do a search.
Maybe the lesson here is don’t have children; these populations ranking better than the US have dismal birthrates. You’ll live to be 376 years old, but will spend the last 286 years having your diaper changed by someone speaking a 3rd world language. What a bright future...
This argument has evolved into pure demagoguery by the RAT party.
The problem here is that these comparisons are apples to oranges. We know enough about human biology to say that the proper comparison is not U.S. to Sweden but U.S. whites to Swedish whites; Asian-Americans to Japan, China (whatever their heritage). And of course, U.S. blacks to blacks in Africa. That last one really puts a nail in the coffin of this argument.
If there were any intellectual honesty on the part of those who trot out these data, the U.S. would look just fine.