AIDS is now the leading cause of death for African-American women between the ages of 25 and 34 and the primary killer for all African Americans in the 19-44 age group.
The swelling ranks of obese, expectant mothers are at heightened danger of having miscarriages, still-births and premature babies, and more likely to deliver children who develop diabetes, cardiovascular disease and even spina bifida. A study released just this week found obese women were almost 70% more likely than others to have an autistic child, too.
[In 2003,] according to the CDC, there was something like 22 percent of American parents of young children were refusing one or more vaccines for their children. Five years later, that percentage had nearly doubled to about 40 percent of all Americans. So the vaccine controversy today is one of the most important public health crises we face in America.