One-Sixth of a Nation

Dr. Arnold E. Schaefer of the U.S. Public Health Service has studied nutrition levels in 33 developing nations and, unsurprisingly, found evidence of widespread hunger in most of them. Nearly two years ago, after Congress ordered a nutrition survey, Schaefer focused on his own country and, surprisingly, found that malnutrition is just as severe among the U.S. poor.

Testifying last week before Democrat George McGovern's Senate Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, Schaefer reported that of 12,000 people examined (mostly in Texas, Louisiana and Kentucky, plus several hundred from upstate New York), 17% were undernourished enough to be considered "real medical risks."

Schaefer's statistics show that one-sixth of the nation is ill-fed--a definite improvement over Franklin D. Roosevelt's "one-third of a nation," but appalling nonetheless. One of every three children under six in Schaefer's sampling is anemic and 3.5% are physically stunted, a condition often accompanied by mental retardation. Among those ten or older, 96% have an average of ten missing, filled or decayed teeth. Particularly disquieting was the resurgence of diseases that were thought to have been wiped out. Among them:

P: GOITER, a grossly enlarged thyroid gland caused by iodine deficiency. The condition was thought to have been eliminated during the Depression by persuading people to use iodized salt in their food. Now it has become endemic again, said Schaefer, affecting 5% of those studied--even though enough iodine to prevent goiter costs less than 1/2 per person per year.

P:RICKETS, a condition resulting in soft, deformed bones. This is another disease supposedly eradicated 30 years ago, principally by adding vitamin D to milk. Though milk shipped abroad in U.S. food programs has long been required to have vitamin D additions, until last fall milk supplied in domestic welfare programs needed no such supplements. P: KWASHIORKOR, a drastic protein deficiency that has killed untold thousands of children in Biafra and scarred others with the hideous trademarks of hunger--large eyes and bloated bellies. Schaefer found seven U.S. cases. P: NIGHT BLINDNESS, a retinal malfunction caused by lack of vitamin A. Nearly a third of the children six or under suffered from the disease, while total blindness was considered a high risk for 13% of the entire sampling.

Schaefer hopes eventually to survey a total of ten states, including California, Massachusetts, Michigan, South Carolina, Washington and West Virginia. Mississippi, the poorest state, was not surveyed because, Schaefer indicated, Mississippian Jamie Whitten, chairman of the House Agriculture Appropriations Committee, blocked the study.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.