There is no greater national emergency facing the people of the United States than the chronic disease epidemic currently affecting millions of children and adults.
This epidemic is so widespread and a matter of such daily urgency that one wonders why it is not spotlighted in the news reports night after night.
Yet, sadly, we hear next to nothing about this scourge — neither its causes nor its effects, much less measures that can be taken to correct and reverse this tragic trend. The corporate media has been virtually silent about what could be called a crisis of chronic diseases in our country.
Chronic Disease: What Is It?
Though there is some variation in the criteria that define chronic disease, the phenomenon can be defined broadly as a condition that lasts one year or more, that requires ongoing medical attention or limits activities of daily living (or both), and that is one of the leading causes of illness, disability, and death.
Most of these ongoing conditions, which range from heart disease to hypertension, from arthritis to asthma, from COPD to cancer, and from diabetes to depression, are preventable and some are reversible. They are for the most part manageable through early detection, improved diet, an exercise regimen, and some sort of treatment.
Recent estimates from the CDC assert that 129 million adults in the United States have been diagnosed with at least one chronic condition. This figure represents an astonishing 51.8% of the civilian noninstitutionalized adult population. That means more than half of American adults are currently suffering from a chronic illness! Even more concerning, 27.2% of those adults have two or more chronic conditions. If institutionalized adults in the US are included in these, those two percentages would jump even higher.
What is the current percentage of children with a chronic disease in the US? The answer is anywhere from 40% to 54%, depending on whose figures you trust. By contrast, in the 1960s, the US Department of Health and Human Services records showed that only 6% of American children had chronic diseases. Ever since, the percentage of children with a chronic disease has been steadily rising. By 1986, the number had grown to 11.8%. By 2006, according to some accounts, it reached a staggering 54%. This skyrocketing trend in the decline of children’s health amounts to some 31 million American children who currently suffer from at least one chronic condition.
More than just numbers on a spreadsheet these facts reflect a shocking reality: Children in the US are 70% more likely to die before adulthood than their counterparts in other wealthy nations. The proof: When a comparison in childhood deaths was made among the 20 wealthiest nations the United States finished dead last.
Though arguments abound when it comes to precise numbers, what is not up for debate is that over the past 50 years, the health of Americans has deteriorated to the point where the US now faces a health crisis of catastrophic proportions.
What is also not up for dispute is that the US has poorer health outcomes for both children and adults than other wealthy nations despite spending more per capita on health care than those other nations.
These statistics and observations are not the result of an aging population or of changes in diagnostic standards. Rather, they point to the sad truth that America has become a society defined by widespread illness among all age groups. And not just “has become” but will continue to be: The same trends are “expected to worsen over the next several decades among all age groups.”
Despite the stark reality that American families and the US government spend billions on medications, therapy, and insurance, the track record of public health authorities is abysmal. They have failed to address what is an obvious and ever-worsening epidemic of chronic disease.
Indeed, the political establishment has all but ignored this national problem, leaving the American people to suffer in silence. Moreover, there appears to be minimal-to-nonexistent political will to investigate and address the root causes of the epidemic.
How did this happen? We will find out in the next two installments of this three-part series.
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In Part Two we explore the principle reasons for this American tragedy.
