Iraqi Children Pay The Cost: Acute Malnutrition Nearly Doubled

[G_j]

this has probably been posted somewhere, but it deserves attention.


http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/112204C.shtml.

Children Pay Cost of Iraq's Chaos

By Karl Vick
The Washington Post
Sunday 21 November 2004

Malnutrition nearly double what it was before invasion.
(far higher than rates in Uganda and Haiti)

Baghdad - Acute malnutrition among young children in Iraq has nearly doubled since the United States led an invasion of the country 20 months ago, according to surveys by the United Nations, aid agencies and the interim Iraqi government.

After the rate of acute malnutrition among children younger than 5 steadily declined to 4 percent two years ago, it shot up to 7.7 percent this year, according to a study conducted by Iraq's Health Ministry in cooperation with Norway's Institute for Applied International Studies and the U.N. Development Program. The new figure translates to roughly 400,000 Iraqi children suffering from "wasting," a condition characterized by chronic diarrhea and dangerous deficiencies of protein.

"These figures clearly indicate the downward trend," said Alexander Malyavin, a child health specialist with the UNICEF mission to Iraq.

The surveys suggest the silent human cost being paid across a country convulsed by instability and mismanagement. While attacks by insurgents have grown more violent and more frequent, deteriorating basic services take lives that many Iraqis said they had expected to improve under American stewardship.


..more..

[L84TEA]

1. I just can't even

think about it...I am just sick... All the money spent on these damn elections. All the money Chimp and his buddies squander. Children starve because of them. UGh..!

[0007]

2. .....and the repukes talk about how precious life and children are,

I don't see any big time programs helping the children in Iraq that have lost parents and are running on empty stomachs. This is upsetting for sure!

[L84TEA]

3. all I know....

IF THEY THINK THEY ARE PISSED OFF NOW....JUST WAIT TIL THOSE ORPHANED/ARMLESS/DEPRESSED/HOMELESS/STARVED CHILDREN grow up...
in about 15 years...

[G_j]

5. kick

[Southpaw Bookworm]

4. So they're not throwing rose petals?

They're probably eating them since food is scarce.

Whoever said that 10 or 15 years from now we'll be paying the piper, when these children are old enough to strap a bomb to their back or hold a machine gun, is dead on.