By EMILY DERUY
ABC News

More than a million babies die on the same day they are born each year. Three million die within their first month of life. Almost all of those deaths are preventable.

Those are some of the statistics outlined in Save the Children’s 14th annual State of the World’s Mothers report released this week.

“The birth of a child should be a time of wonder and celebration,” reads the introduction. “But for millions of mothers and babies in developing countries, it is a dance with death.”

There is, however, a glimmer of hope. The number of children dying has declined by more than half since 1970. Latin American countries, especially, have seen declining newborn and maternal death rates. And that’s not some miracle. There are very specific measures that have kept babies alive.

Some of the solutions are simple. It’s important to clean umbilical cords to avoid infection, for example, and to give vaccines. Vitamin supplements and breastfeeding can also save lives. Countries that have done a good job of teaching these things to healthcare workers and then supported them with government funding have seen death rates drop.

Save the Children estimates that more than a million babies could be saved each year if they and their mothers had access to steroid injections to prevent preterm labor, resuscitation to save babies who are not breathing at birth, an antiseptic to clean umbilical cords to avoid infections, and injectable antibiotics to treat newborn sepsis and pneumonia. The most expensive of these measures is just $6.

Of the 12 developing countries making the greatest strides, Peru and Brazil rank at the top. Mexico comes in fifth, and Guatemala ranks eighth. Brazil has reduced newborn mortality by more than 60 percent since 1990 and narrowed the healthcare gap between the rich and poor. It provides free care to mothers and deploys healthcare workers to some of the poorest areas. Nearly all births are now attended by a skilled healthcare provider. Breastfeeding and immunizations have increased.

But it takes governments, nonprofits and citizens all working together to make such solutions a reality. There are daunting obstacles, from abject poverty to pure gender discrimination, that hamper their implementation.

One way to get to the root of the problem is education of parents. Less educated women are more likely to be poor and mothers living in poverty are most at risk of giving birth to babies who don’t make it. Educated women marry and begin having children later. They are more likely to be financially stable, well-nourished and healthy. Educating boys and men about family planning and maternal health is also critical.

Maternal and newborn death rates are highest in sub-Saharan Africa where poverty is rampant and life-saving measures like anti-malarial nets are scarce. The top countries are in Scandinavia, where universal healthcare is a reality and there is less of an income gap.

The United States has the highest first-day death rate in the industrialized world. More than 11,000 babies in this country die on the day they are born, which is 50 percent more first-day deaths than in all other industrialized countries combined. One reason is that the U.S. has a high preterm birth rate. It also has more teenagers giving birth than any other industrialized country. Babies born to teens are more likely to be premature and weigh less. The solutions involve everything from keeping young women in school longer to making sure every mom and baby has access to healthcare.

It is not an easy thing to solve. But as Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, wrote in the report’s foreword, “Saving newborn lives will prevent incalculable suffering.”

ABC News

CHICAGO –  A one-time suburban Chicago official was convicted Monday of lying for decades about drawing water for residents from a well the village knew was tainted by a cancer-causing chemical.

Theresa Neubauer, 55, is the only Crestwood official to go to trial in a scandal that shocked the region for the apparent callousness displayed by village officials. It also infuriated residents and left many fearing for their health and the health of their families.

As the verdict was read, the former water department supervisor showed no emotions. It took jurors two days of deliberations — starting Friday and resuming Monday — to reach a verdict.

Neubauer, who is on paid leave as Crestwood’s police chief, was found guilty on 11 counts of making false statements. Each count carries a maximum five-year prison term.

Prosecutors say she and other officials decided to pump the cheaper, polluted well water to score points with voters: They could boast about keeping water rates low in the 11,000-resident village.

During closings Friday, a prosecutor said Neubauer was part of the Crestwood government’s inner circle and knew about the practice. He displayed disclosure forms where she indicates no well water was drawn.

“She told lie after lie, month after month, year after year,” Tim Chapman said.

But defense attorney Thomas Breen said Neubauer was a scapegoat. And he portrayed her as a glorified clerk who took orders from Crestwood officials higher up the chain of command.

He then pointed to her and apologized for what he was about to say.

“You served cake and coffee,” he said, looking at Neubauer. “That’s how close you got to the inner circle.”

The only other official charged was Frank Scaccia, 61, Crestwood’s certified water operator. He changed his plea to guilty earlier this month to one count, and now faces a maximum five-year prison term.

During closings, Neubauer displayed no expression but fidgeted constantly with a pen, rolling it over her fingertips. Dozens of Crestwood residents looked on from courtroom benches.

Raising his voice, Breen told jurors that those truly responsible for the decisions to draw the contaminated water were, in his words, letting Neubauer “wear the jacket” for their misdeeds.

“It’s about a bunch of men who, when push comes to shove, are cowards. Cowards!” he shouted.

He questioned how she could have possibly known the water was poisoned when she herself took showers in and drank the same water, and when she made oatmeal for her children with the water.

But Chapman, the prosecutor, scoffed at the notion Neubauer was ignorant of the village’s water practices.

“That is nonsense,” he told jurors. “She carefully tracked the use of that well for nearly 30 years.”

Officials drew the tainted water until 2008 even after environmental officials warned in the mid-1980s that cancer-causing chemicals had oozed into the well, prosecutors have said.

Officials in Crestwood, about 20 miles south of Chicago, saved nearly $400,000 annually by mixing in contaminated water with cleaner but pricier Lake Michigan water, according to prosecutors.

Pending lawsuits blame the well water for a variety of illnesses.

A 2010 health department report did find cancer rates were higher than average in Crestwood, but it didn’t make a definite link to the tainted water.

By DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW

BEIJING — Living in China these days, we’re bombarded with scary accounts of rising cancer rates that are partly linked to some of the world’s worst pollution.

The slogan this year for National Cancer Prevention and Care Week, which began Tuesday, spells it out: “Protect the Environment, Keep Cancer Away.”

That even the Chinese state is highlighting a link between the poor environment and cancer reflects an atmosphere of deep concern, verging on panic, over public health, as more and more people ask: Is China killing itself in the pursuit of spectacularly fast, very dirty, economic growth?

Of course, there are other, important reasons for rising rates, like an aging population and changing diet and lifestyles, as the Shanghai cancer specialists Guo Xiaomao and Long Jiang recently wrote in The Xinmin Evening News.

And China’s cancer rate is still below that of the United States. About 3.5 million people are diagnosed with cancer yearly, the Zhejiang Science and Technology News Net reported Tuesday, citing a 2012 report by the National Cancer Registry. (Other news accounts put the figure at 3.12 million. Statistics in China often vary.) In the United States, with a population less than a quarter of China’s 1.35 billion, more than 1.6 million people are expected to receive a diagnosis of cancer in 2013, according to the American Cancer Society.

But cancer rates in the United States are falling, whereas in China they are rising, doctors and officials say. And China’s death rate from cancer is far higher — about 2.5 million people yearly, compared with the 580,350 expected to die in the United States this year. Complicating things further, some doctors are wondering: Is China facing a double health whammy as rising disease rates challenge a troubled medical system?

At the top of the list of reasons China may be facing a cancer crisis is the crucial issue of mistrust between patient and doctor. A new article in the Journal of Oncology Practice, published by the American Society of Clinical Oncology, illustrates this problem.

The lack of trust, reflected in regular accounts in the Chinese news media of patients and their families venting anger or even physically attacking physicians, is rooted in a perception that doctors are out for personal gain and may be incompetent or corrupt.

But according to the article — written by two oncologists, Dr. David H. Garfield of the United States and Dr. Harold Brenner of Israel, and a Chinese oncology nurse, Lucy Lu (who in 2011 were in a group that set up the first of several planned outpatient cancer centers in China, the article said) — doctors are afraid of being blamed by hospital administrators for “bad outcomes,” or deaths, and may act in ways that may protect themselves but may not be in the patient’s best interests.

In “Practicing Western Oncology in Shanghai, China: One Group’s Experience,” Ms. Lu wrote: “We are attempting to serve a huge population with limited resources, and the system to protect Chinese physicians remains a big issue. If there are bad results, the physicians are guilty unless they can prove themselves to be right.”

Curiously, for a one-party state obsessed with control, in medical treatment “There is no culture of ‘the captain of the ship,”’ they wrote. “Thus, we cannot control what other treatments patients are simultaneously receiving.”

Ms. Lu says in the article: “Our Western physicians take difficult cases as challenges, whereas Chinese physicians first assess risk to themselves and hesitate in helping patients.”

All too often, the human touch is lacking. “Hospitals are reluctant to have patients die on their premises. Lack of hospices for dying patients” is a problem, the authors wrote.

The article is spreading fast among Chinese oncologists, some of whom are dedicated practitioners. They say its criticisms are broadly accurate. Their recognition of the problem is attended by mixed feelings of regret, “for the patients, for the physicians, for the government,” as one doctor said. (The doctors asked not to be identified because they work in the military medical system, which forbids interviews with the news media.)

The article’s conclusion is being especially hotly discussed — and acknowledged — by Chinese doctors. Ms. Lu’s summary says: “The speed of advancement of the whole country is so fast that we may have missed something that is important, and we need to think about it. We need to learn more from the West than just importing these fabulous machines.”

The Western doctors called their time in Shanghai “a challenging experience,” explaining that “Respect for and knowledge of Chinese culture and an attempt, as difficult at that may be, not to be judgmental are required.”

There’s that. Then there’s this: As news accounts, often backed by official reports, multiply of cancer villages, of rivers and wells running milky — or orange, or red, or black — with pollution, of rising cancer rates among young people as well as old, the Chinese doctors’ reactions are the most telling: They care deeply about their patients and they love their country, they say. Yet they know there are serious questions as to whether the system allows best practice. And they don’t see easy solutions.

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