The tiniest victims

Most people on the planet are aware of the U.S. war and occupation against Iraq. And the vast majority of the world's population are against this brutal, illegal war. But a war of a different kind is getting very little media attention, even though it is just as brutal.

It is a war against not just children but newborns. It is a crime against humanity of gigantic proportions.

According to the March 3 publication of the highly respected international medical journal, The Lancet, the deaths of 3 million newborns worldwide--that's 10,000 each day--could be prevented if the poorer, developing countries had easy access to technologically advanced research and health care for preventable diseases associated with neonatal care.

An additional 1 million more babies die within the first month of being born under similar conditions. So in total, 4 million deaths of babies could easily be avoided.

Most of these deaths occur in
former colonial countries, mainly in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

"Virtually all (99 percent of deaths) occur in low- and middle-income countries, yet most research, publications, and funding focus on high-tech care for the 1 percent of deaths that occur in rich countries," the study stated.

The study went on to say that "the three major causes of neonatal deaths are infections: sepsis, pneumonia, diarrhea, and tetanus (accounting for 36 percent of deaths); premature birth (28 percent); and problems related to complications during childbirth (23 percent). Infections are the major cause of death after the first week of life." (OneWorld.net, March 3)

Some of the solutions offered to stop neonatal deaths include two
20-cent anti-tetanus injections during pregnancy, exclusive breastfeeding, clean delivery and antibiotics.

"At less than one dollar per capita per year in additional spending to provide these life-saving interventions to 90 percent of mothers and babies, the cost is affordable," said Gary Darmstadt, an advisor with Save the Children USA, one of the study's architects.

While solutions to this genocidal war on babies certainly exist, they require not just resources but the eradication, root and branch, of the economic system that breeds poverty, war and racism. That system is capitalism and is based on making profits, not meeting human needs.

If tiny socialist Cuba can sustain the lowest infant mortality rate in all of Latin America, just imagine what a socialist world could do to insure that every human being has a bright future, beginning as a healthy newborn. Let's not just imagine it, but fight until it becomes real.