Reuters reported on an annual medical survey recently, that ranked 19 of the world’s industrialised nations on the scale of 1 to, obviously, 19 on deaths through treatable (that is, deaths that “could have been prevented by access to timely and effective health care”) diseases. The list includes things like stroke, some cancers, diabetes, heart disease, some bacterial infections and complications from common surgical procedures.

Now, that’s a pretty serious topic, handled by Doctors Ellen Nolte and Martin McKee of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Because you’re probably curious, France topped the list and the USA came last (falling four places in 10 years). The Senior [EDIT: Vice] President of one of the bodies that funded the study, Cathy Schoen, said:

It is startling to see the U.S. falling even farther behind on this crucial indicator of health system performance … The fact that other countries are reducing these preventable deaths more rapidly, yet spending far less, indicates that policy, goals and efforts to improve health systems make a difference.

This is no surprise to many Americans. But, just to show that humour can be found in even the most serious of issues, Reuters obviously decided that they needed some sound bites from one of the researchers, and Dr. Nolte ponied up to the telephone. What is it about scientists and the bleeding obvious these days? Nolte said:

[T]he large number of Americans who lack any type of health insurance — about 47 million people in a country of about 300 million, according to U.S. government estimates — probably was a key factor in the poor showing of the United States compared to other industrialized nations in the study.

Probably was a key? Oh, it gets better. Bear in mind that this survey was all about the general population’s access to health care:

I wouldn’t say it (the last-place ranking) is a condemnation, because I think health care in the U.S. is pretty good if you have access. But if you don’t, I think that’s the main problem, isn’t it?

Bwaahahahahahaha. That’s like saying it’s wrong to mention that certain laptops shouldn’t be used because of exploding batteries, because in the laptops that don’t have exploding batteries, the laptop works really well. You can read the full Reuters article here.

And, in fact, please do, because I noticed something else at the end of the article’s first page. Namely,

In establishing their rankings, the researchers considered deaths before age 75 … [finding s]uch deaths accounted for 23 percent of overall deaths in men and 32 percent of deaths in women.

Now, that’s no laughing matter. Another way of putting it is that, across all the 19 industrialised nations, 40% more women than men die from preventable disease. FORTY. PER. CENT. Isn’t that just a tad…oh crap, what’s the word I’m looking for here?…oh yeah…SIGNIFICANT?

I’ve dropped Drs. Nolte and McKee a line and mentioned this. If they get back to me, I’ll let you know.

POSTSCRIPT: It’s not only in medicine that the USA is falling. It’s not pheromone-crazed snakes on a mutha-f*ing plane, people. It’s only dying mice. Awwwww.