Pigmentation Problems

Today, when we think of Afghanistan, a cauldron of chaos comes to mind: massive international counterinsurgency and counternarcotics operations, countless NGOs struggling to maintain neutrality and operational integrity amidst the militarization of aid and development, and the sheer deprivation of dignity suffered by the overly-occupied Afghan people, among other such indictments of the international community's historic and present-day involvement. While these issues continually make above-the-fold headlines, today is International Women's Day (IWD), and I wish to highlight yet another travesty in Afghanistan: maternal mortality.

With more than half a million women dying each year from largely preventable complications related to pregnancy and childbirth, Afghanistan is now ranked second worst in the world when it comes to maternal mortality behind Sierra Leone. In fact, in 2006, Badakhshan province in northeast Afghanistan had the worst incidence of maternal mortality ever recorded in history. According to UNICEF, Afghanistan's maternal death rate is 1,800 per 100,000 live births, compared to the U.S. rate, which is 11 per 100,000. While those of us living in free and open societies would agree that the rights of women in Afghanistan are in dire straits, we must also agree that this particular situation demands special attention. Indeed, with regard to these statistics, President of CARE USA Dr. Helene Gayle famously stated, “We have to stop being polite about this issue – we need to start marching in the streets. Post-partum hemorrhage is a nice way of saying we let women bleed to death.”

Addressing this challenge is compounded in difficulty when we begin to understand the landscape of the geography, culture, history, and politics of Afghan society. Intermittent access to basic healthcare and education; religious influence, tribal lines, customs and tradition; and living in perpetual states of war and occupation make it particularly difficult to approach the problem of maternal mortality. But there is hope on the horizon.

In a previous piece I wrote on the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN), which focused on their efforts with regard to women and girls in Afghanistan and Pakistan, I made note of their 18-month midwifery training program. Developed in Badakhshan province, the program is showing signs of success in both health promotion and education, in addition to their community nursing initiatives. Efforts of this sort will have an effect on both maternal and infant health explained John Tomaro, Director of Health Programs for the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF), to the BBC. Intensive training of this nature is not the only method to achieving lasting and positive health outcomes; educating the populace on the use and benefits of contraception can also make an enormous difference.

With Afghanistan averaging more than six babies per woman and UNICEF estimating that a mere 10 percent use some form of birth control, improving such damning statistics may not be as hard as it seems. Just last week, the World Health Organization's journal, Bulletin, published a study conducted in 2005-2006, which involved 3,700 families in three rural areas with different ethnic groups, including both Sunni and Shia Muslims. In this case, the Health Ministry collaborated with nonprofit organizations to spread the word that using contraception was 300 times safer than giving birth in Afghanistan. The results of the study indicated that over the course of eight months, the use of the pill, condoms and injected forms of birth control rose to 27 percent in all three areas — and up to half of the women in one area — once the benefits were explained one-on-one by health workers. “The fastest, cheapest, easiest way to reduce maternal deaths in Afghanistan is with contraception,” said lead author Dr. Douglas Huber to the Associated Press.

Funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and conducted for the U.S.-based nonprofit Management Sciences for Health, the report noted that the key to such societal shifts rested largely in the hands of the mullahs — local religious leaders. Quotes were used from the Quran to promote breast-feeding for two years, while mullahs joined community and health leaders to explain the importance of spacing out births to give mothers and babies the best chance at good health. “All the mullahs at the community level knew of these things that the Prophet Muhammad himself advised his followers,” Huber continued. “This was not a hard sell.”

But it is certainly a long process. Great strides have been made in bringing the plight of women to the forefront of societal awareness and policy debates around the world since IWD first began in 1911, and one upcoming forum in particular vows to carry the baton even further. Positioning women's maternal and reproductive health as a global priority, the Women Deliver 2010 conference is being held June 7-9 in Washington, D.C. It expects a lineup of government officials, experts and advocates destined to attract national and international headlines, including Hillary Clinton, Ban Ki-moon, Sarah Brown, and Melinda Gates, among many others. In an interview with Jill Sheffield, the founder of Women Deliver, she said, “Women are an asset to their families, to their communities, and to their economies. On the eve of the G8 summit, the Women Deliver conference will seek to reinforce the idea that investing in women makes economic sense as well as good common sense, mobilizing historic action on this issue and bringing it directly to policymakers.”

—

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ROBERT REICH, AMERICAN PROSPECT: The health insurers are not, George, you said they're popular and everybody likes their health insurer. They like their doctor. They hate their health insurer. And health insurance is going up in terms of rates 20, 30, 40, 50 percent in many states. In fact, Goldman Sachs just this past week has said to its many of its investors, "Invest in some insurance companies because they don't have competition, and they have, are exhibiting huge profits." That is money directly out of the pockets of Americans.

GEORGE WILL, ABC: A, you say they have huge profits. As you know, confiscate all the profits of all the health insurance companies, with those profits you could finance our healthcare for 48 hours. What you do for the next 363 days I don't know. Second, you say there's not enough competition? Fine, let them compete in a national market across state lines.

REICH: Yes, let them compete across state lines, fine. But not a race to the bottom. Set minimum federal standards because we've seen over and over again that the recipients of health insurance don't know what they are buying very often. Until there are common standards, minimal standards, then people are going to be taken. And that is what's happened over and over again.

WILL: There you have the premise of this legislation and the core of today's liberalism: the American people are such dopes they can't be counted upon to buy their own insurance.

For the record, as NewsBusters has previously reported, health insurance companies are amongst the least profitable of all America's industries. Here are 2008's rankings done by Fortune magazine:

2008 Industry Rank as % of Revenues
1 Network and Other Communications Equipment 20.4
2 Internet Services and Retailing 19.4
3 Pharmaceuticals 19.3
4 Medical Products and Equipment 16.3
5 Railroads 12.6
6 Financial Data Services 11.7
7 Mining, Crude-Oil production 11.5
8 Securities 10.7
9 Oil and Gas Equipment, Services 10.2
10 Scientific, Photographic, and Control Equipment 9.9
11 Household and Personal Products 8.7
12 Utilities: Gas and Electric 8.7
13 Aerospace and Defense 7.6
14 Food Services 7.1
15 Industrial Machinery 6.9
16 Food Consumer Products 6.7
17 Electronics, Electrical Equipment 6.5
18 Commercial Banks 5.2
19 Telecommunications 5.1
20 Chemicals 5.0
21 Construction and Farm Machinery 5.0
22 Insurance: Life, Health (stock) 4.6
23 Information Technology Services 4.5
24 Computers, Office Equipment 4.3
25 Metals 3.9
26 Wholesalers: Diversified 3.5
27 Insurance: Property and Casualty (stock) 3.3
28 Specialty Retailers 3.2
29 General Merchandisers 3.2
30 Health Care: Pharmacy and Other Services 3.0
31 Packaging, Containers 3.0
32 Beverages 2.9
33 Engineering, Construction 2.7
34 Health Care: Medical Facilities 2.4
35 Health Care: Insurance and Managed Care 2.2
36 Petroleum Refining 2.1
37 Food and Drug Stores 1.5
38 Pipelines 1.5
39 Wholesalers: Health Care 1.3
40 Semiconductors and Other Electronic Components 1.0
41 Energy 0.9
42 Home Equipment, Furnishings 0.7
43 Food Production 0.6
44 Wholesalers: Electronics and Office Equipment -0.3
45 Diversified Financials -0.6
46 Motor Vehicles and Parts -0.7
47 Insurance: Life, Health (mutual) -3.0
48 Hotels, Casinos, Resorts -4.5
49 Automotive Retailing, Services -7.9
50 Forest and Paper Products -9.6
51 Entertainment -10.0
52 Real Estate -13.4
53 Airlines -13.5

So, in 2008, health insurers ranked 35th in profitability returning a meager 2.2 percent on revenues. What this means is that for every dollar health insurers brought in, they made 2.2 cents.

Sadly, for liberal media members like Reich, that's considered TOO MUCH! Nice job of Will to point out his inanity.

Of course, he'll probably be the next liberal economist in the media to win a Nobel Prize.

But for now, Reich was just the second media darling in eight days to go head to head with Will and lose.

For those that have forgotten, George smacked around New York Times columnist Paul Krugman on last Sunday's "This Week."

Who's next?

—Noel Sheppard is the Associate Editor of NewsBusters. Follow him at Facebook and Twitter.