LETTERS
DOCTORING THE EVIDENCE
Sirs:
In your Spring 1968 issue Nor–
man Mailer writes:
Sufficiently fortunate to be alien–
ated from the benefits of Amer–
ican civilization, the Negro seems
to have been better able to keep
his health.
It
would take a liber–
al with a psychotic sense of
moderation to claim that whites
and Neg roe s have equally
healthy bodies; the Negroes
know they have become on the
average physically superior, and
this
against all the logic of
America's medical civilization.
. ..
In the
New York Times,
May
19, 1968, there appears the follow–
ing:
Poor Americans are four time as
likely to die before the age of
35 as the average citizen. Negro
women in Mississippi die six
times as often in childbirth as
white women and in some urban
ghettoes of the North one child
in ten dies in infancy. The life
expectancy of an American Ne–
gro at birth is 61 years, that of a
white American is 68.
In citing these figures Dr. H.
Jack Geiger of Tufts-New Eng–
land Medical Center said recent–
ly that the health of the poor in
this country "is an ongoing na–
tional disaster."
The effects of racial discrimina–
tion and economic disadvantage
begin before birth, Dr. Geiger
said. . . . Poor women obtain
prenatal care less often than
others. In the maternity wards of
public hospitals 45 per cent of
the mothers have had no such
care. This increases three-fold
their likelihood of bearing chil–
dren prematurely. Mental re–
tardation occurs 10 times more
often in very small premature
babies than in those born at full
term....
The health gap between rich
and poor is growing. In 1940 the
infant mortality rate for non–
whites was 70 per cent higher
than that for whites. In 1962 the
rate was 90 per cent greater.
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THE AMERICAN
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ANTHOLOGY
Stories, poems, and essays selected
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Alfred, John Ashbery, Robert
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&
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19 Union Sq. W., New York 10003
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