It’s one thing for the government to raise taxes, strangle your online business with regulations, or censor your tweets. It’s much worse when the government is to blame for shortening your life.
Life expectancy in the U.S. has fallen to 76.4 years, the lowest in 1 / 4 of a century, according to recent federal data. Americans ought to be devastated. What might be more vital than the probability for a protracted life?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has repeatedly skewed its response to health mega killers akin to fentanyl, COVID, and lung cancer. Meanwhile, life expectancy is getting shorter and shorter.
In 1980, Americans had considered one of the best life expectancies in the world. Since then, the United States has lost ground. In France, Switzerland, Italy and other highly developed countries, people live several years longer, reaching a mean of 83-84 years. Residents of the Czech Republic, Chile and Slovenia can even expect to live longer than Americans.
Even before COVID, the United States ranked twenty ninth in life expectancy according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development. The virus has only widened the already alarming gulf between America and other nations.
![Smoking-related lung cancer seen on chest CT scan in radial section.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/12/us-life-expectancy-drops-778-1.jpg?w=1024)
Now, life expectancy in these other countries is bouncing back from COVID, while American lives proceed to be shortened for other reasons.
Let’s start with the failure of our government, especially the CDC, to tackle the leading explanation for death amongst Americans aged 18 to 49: overdoses. Two-thirds of those deaths are fentanyl. Nearly 107,000 Americans died of an overdose in 2021, 50% greater than just two years earlier.
Where is the campaign to combat fentanyl-related deaths? Over the past half-century, US health agencies have launched several astonishingly successful media offensives to dissuade Americans from smoking cigarettes. The CDC has done nothing to fight this recent killer.
Blame confusion in the agency’s mission. In September 2021, with overdoses skyrocketing and COVID raging, the CDC launched a campaign for “Inclusive Communications.” The agency has instructed health professionals to avoid stigmatizing words akin to “illegal immigrant” and replace “parent” with gender-specific terms akin to “mother” and “father”. As if political correctness is more vital than stopping death.
The CDC’s failed response to COVID has further lowered the life expectancy of Americans. The pinnacle of the agency, Rochelle Walensky, said: “Truthfully, we have been responsible for some pretty dramatic, pretty public bugs, from testing to data and communications.” The US has a better death rate per capita from COVID than other developed countries, including the UK, France, Spain and Canada.
![Over a million fentanyl pills seized in Arizona](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/12/us-life-expectancy-drops-780.jpg?w=1024)
As COVID wanes, CDC inaction on one other front – lung cancer screening – limits progress on life expectancy for cancer patients where America is otherwise a frontrunner.
Lung cancer is the #1 cancer killer, killing 130,000 people a yr. That is greater than the combined variety of deaths from breast, prostate and colon cancer. Because lung cancer is never diagnosed before it has spread, the probability of survival is eighteen%.
But when lung cancer is diagnosed early with a chest CT scan, the patient has an 80% probability of surviving one other 20 years, reports Claudia Henschke, a radiology expert at the Mount Sinai Icahn School of Medicine in Recent York. That definitely beats 18%.
Scanning takes quarter-hour laying flat on a table that slides in and out of the scanning device. There isn’t any squeezing like a mammogram, and there is not any disgusting preparation like a colonoscopy.
The technology is widely available, beneficial by the US Preventive Services Task Force and covered by insurance, but few doctors understand how to order it and few patients understand how to ask for it. Blame the CDC for this information gap. Only 15% of Americans who need lung screening get it.
Screening all eligible Americans for cancer would likely allow the country to reduce cancer deaths by almost 50% – a goal of President Joe Biden – with none recent scientific breakthroughs.
![Only 8% of Americans are uninsured, but the entire nation faces the prospect of a shorter life expectancy.](https://nypost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2022/12/us-life-expectancy-drops-776.jpg?w=1024)
Last week, the White House announced a pilot project to “research and treat” cancer. Oh, sorry, it is not for the United States. It’s for women in Botswana.
Is that this what Biden meant when he said curing cancer “is considered one of the reasons I ran for president”? Laughter if it wasn’t so tragic.
Ten years ago, Americans were told that the biggest health challenge was the uninsured. Congress passed ObamaCare. Currently, only 8% of Americans are uninsured, but the entire nation faces the prospect of a shorter life expectancy.
For those wasted years, you possibly can thank federal health officials, especially the dysfunctional CDC. Call it Centers of Decline and Confusion.
Betsy McCaughey is the chair of the Infection Mortality Reduction Committee and former Lieutenant Governor of Recent York.
Twitter: @Betsy_McCaughey