The Rotten State of USA Spending to Prevent Disease

I'll be talking to 60 women tomorrow about my favorite topic: nutrition.  Was asked to speak by one of the women who has previously attended my class, Your Body's Grace.

In preparation, I decided to include statistics regarding number of fatal deaths caused by chronic disease (the exact type of deaths directly affected by nutrition, or lack of).
Next I looked up number of automobile fatalities.  And lastly, I compared the budgets of the two government agencies responsible for disease prevention, and prevention of auto deaths.  

Here are my very disturbing results (and please note that my data comes directly from government information available on the web):

Traffic Deaths (most current numbers available are from 2011) =
32,300 persons.

The National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration proposed budget for 2013 = $981 million ($981,000,000).
Thus we spend approximately $30,370 for each traffic death in USA.


Chronic Disease Deaths (most current numbers available are from 2010) =
1,513,000 persons.  I've detailed this number below:

598,000 persons died from cardiac disease 
575,000 persons died from cancer
138,000 persons died from chronic respiratory disease
                                      (e.g. COPD)
130,000 persons died from stroke
 83,000 persons died from Alzheimer's Disease
 69,000 persons died from diabetes
 50,000 persons died from renal disease
total: 1,513,000 deaths from chronic (preventable) disease

The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention proposed budget for 2013 =
$11.2 billion ($11,200,000,000).
Thus we spend approximately $7,400 for each chronic disease death.

We're spending 4.1 x more for each traffic death compared to each preventable death.
For chronic disease prevention, we spend less than a quarter of what we spend for traffic fatalities.

Traffic deaths equal only 2% of our chronic disease deaths, yet we spend over 4 times as much money for traffic death prevention.

Something is very very rotten in Denmark (the U.S.A.).

Question Posed to Editor of New York Times

The following is my question to Jill Abramson, Executive Editor of the New York Times (sent today, October 17, 2012):

Hello Ms. Abramson,
Thank you for providing this forum for NY Times readers.
My question has to do with the epidemic of "lifestyle" diseases: diabetes, gastro-intestinal disorders, heart disease, hypertension, gout, etc., whose etiology stems from Metabolic Syndrome, which stems from obesity.

I am asking if the Times is willing to commit to a concerted effort to have reporters investigate what specific and practical/real things we as a society can do to begin to lessen the incidence of these related diseases.  Can we begin a real dialogue with the food industry (all aspects of the food industry from farming to manufacture to distribution to fast food/leisure dining), with Congress, with big pharma, with large and small corporations being willing to change the vending and food available to workers, being willing to have paid exercise breaks, etc.; to see what can be done to reverse these deadly and very costly diseases.

Would fast food be willing to begin to serve all of their bread products with 30% whole wheat flour, increasing over a 10 year period to 80% whole wheat flour?  Will Congress be willing to investigate the rise in obesity with the increase of sugared drinks (including the juice provided by the WIC program)?  Would Big Pharma be willing to devote half of their advertising time to prevention of the GI, erectile dysfunction, high cholesterol, diabetes for which they tout their medicines?

When I hear the Presidential and VP debates mention the rising cost of Medicare.....no one, not a one mentions the need to control and reverse our obesity/Metabolic Syndrome problem.
Medicare costs will not begin to be checked unless and until we do.

Thank you again for your willingness to read and respond to our questions.
Gratefully,
Mary Farkas
(I hold an M.S., and M.A. and am a retired Registered Dietitian)