Author: Patrick Clarkin

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The Costs of War

There’s a bit of controversy surrounding “The Human Security Report,” (HSR) published a couple of weeks ago by Andrew Mack and colleagues at Simon Fraser University. It suggests that improvements in public health over the last few decades have continued to lower mortality rates in many African nations, even during times of war. Looking at Figure 2.1, it just seems counter-intuitive that Under-5 mortality would not increase in more countries during periods of conflict.

Epidemiologist Les Roberts (Columbia Univ.) argues forcefully that the report is not very good scholarship (to put it kindly). In his words, “this report draws unjustified conclusions and will leave the world more ignorant and misguided for its release.” Ouch. Roberts makes a strong case to back up his statement, including points like this:

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Shrinking babies

Harvard researchers are reporting in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology that the average birth weight in the U.S. has actually dropped over the past 15 years. The study looked at more than 36 million full-term births between 1990 and 2005. After controlling for confounding variables, it was found that birth weight had decreased by 52 grams. This trend ran counter to that found previously, which was that birth weights had been steadily increasing over the last century. A secondary analysis suggested that the drop was not due to a change in maternal demographics, as the trend was also found in a subset of white, well-educated non-smoking women as well.

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On our (in)humanity

Two recent stories in the news caught my eye on the two sides of human beings. The first is a shocking episode of two young boys in England, brothers aged 10 and 11, who brutally beat two other boys of roughly the same age. The details of the case are horrific, as the brothers robbed the boys, threatened to kill them, forced one of them to engage in a sex act, and then for over an hour stomped and beat them with broken glass, bricks, sticks, and pieces of a ceramic sink. Both victims survived, but barely.

Contrast that story with the outpouring of support for Haitians suffering from the recent earthquake. According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy, as of January 20 private citizens and companies had donated $305 million to support relief efforts there. The wide chasm between these two stories encapsulates the tremendous pliability of human behavior. On the one hand, we have an enormous capacity for brutality toward each other, as seen in the many examples of interpersonal violence, the number of wars on the planet, or even through the more subtle, systematic violence of extreme poverty and exploitation.

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