My friend claims that thousands of people are starving to death every day in the United States. He claims that in every major city, every week, hundreds of people are dying in hospitals of malnutrition, but the doctors always classify the cause of death as something else to hide the fact that millions of people are starving each year, and we have massive famine in this country.
I, on the other hand, think that death by starvation is exceedingly rare in the US, and hasn’t ever happened in the US due to economic conditions, not even in the depression. I think that even most homeless get a fair amount of calories, and malnutrition is a rare cause of death even among the schizophrenic homeless.
Any cites either way? Anyone know about this? This is a question, not a GD, so I am seeking folks with some facts.
First of all, you can be malnourished even if you eat a lot of calories. Lack of calories is starvation. Starvation implies malnourished, but someone who, for example, lived only on bread and water might not be starving in the sense of lacking adequate calories, but because they are not getting necessary nutrients they are malnourished.
People suffering from, say, anorexia, really can die from lack of calories, a.k.a. starvation, but that’s not due to a famine. It can also be difficult to adequately feed people with certain gastrointestinal disorders, terminal cancer, and some other medical conditions. In those instances, malnourishment may be a contributing cause of death, but it’s not the primary thing that kills them. Malnutrition can be a problem with the elderly who may have no appetite, have lost their sense of taste, or are suffering from conditions that make it either more difficult to eat or restrict their diets (this would include economic difficulties making it hard to buy good food), and so forth.
So, in a sense, it is true that starvation and malnutrition exist in the US, and you can see such people in hospitals, but it’s not part of a famine or a conspiracy to cover things up.
When the “fact” being advanced has no basis in reality, the burden of proof for a cite is on the one who advances it.
If your friend also said thousands of leprechauns were getting ear surgery every year but it’s being disguised as gallbladder surgery on short people to hide the fact that we operate on leprechauns, what sort of cite might you or he suggest to combat his naivete and gullibility?
Generally speaking you cannot satisfy a conspiracist determined that secret things are happening no-one knows about.
There are some poor who go hungry. There is malnourishment. There are elderly and infirm with the dwindles even in hospitals, and hospitals have nutritionists to help them. Thousands are not starving to death as their primary cause of demise in my or any other hospital. Head to Walmart to reassure yourself that the polloi are getting plenty of calories in this country…indeed many, like me, seem to be building up a generous reserve should an actual famine hit.
I’m sure many people do die in hospitals with lack of food being a major contributing factor, but only because their underlying illness makes them unable to eat.
Your friend who believes there is famine in this country does not really understand what famine means, I think. Grocery stores with shelves piled high with food is not a typical indicator of famine. Famine means you go down to the store and they don’t have food to sell you. Does he actually think this is happening and nobody knows about it?
Tell him that not only are thousands dying every day of starvation, but that UFO’s kidnap literally millions of Americans daily, perform anal invasions plus brainwashing, then return the hapless citizens back as if nothing had happened.
This is all being covered up as part of a global conspiracy involving the Knights Templar, the Freemasons, the NSA and McDonalds.
This is not true. In many cases famine-stricken countries have been net exporters of food. People starve not because no food is available, but because they cannot afford to buy food at the price determined by the market. Food companies therefore have the choice of letting their produce rot on the shelves for want of paying buyers, lowering the price to unprofitable levels, destroying their produce en masse, or selling it abroad for a profit. Since food companies are profit-making enterprises and not charities, the fourth option is always taken when it is available; in fact, even when selling locally is profitable, food will be exported instead if the profit is higher. The third option (destroying food) is a popular choice when the fourth is not available.
I dont doubt this is possible but do you have a site of any case where this was confirmed as having occurred? What country (corp) sold the food that could have feed their people? What country (corp) bought food that then directly caused wide spread starvation in another country? What mitigating circumstances surrounded the incident if any?
People get sick from malnutrition. Kids do poorly in school due to malnutrition. People are hungry in America. But I do not see any evidence of Americans dying of starvation the way you see them dying in third world, war torn nations. It ain’t happening.
This happens with alarming regularity, so there are probably too many cases to list. One notable case is the Irish potato famine of 1845–1849, where not only did Ireland remain a net exporter of food, but exports of many food products (including livestock) actually increased. India has been a net exporter of food since the 19th century, even during droughts and famines. In 2003 it had a surplus of 50 million tons of food grains while 350 million went hungry. In the early 1990s South Africa, a net exporter of food, saw localized famines with tens of thousands of people dying every year. The 1984–1985 Ethiopian famine occurred when Ethiopia was a net exporter of food (and not just coffee).
These cases are all well-documented in scholarly and environmental literature (though alas, not so much in the mainstream news). Googling for ‘famine “net exporter”’ brings up some news and polemical articles; doing a Google Scholar search for the same results in a few hundred scholarly articles.
I believe I may have found the source of your friend’s factoid, albeit a bit garbled in the translation from “serious news articles” to “conspiracy theorist factoid”.
It comes in two parts, which must be conflated in order to achieve the necessary critical mass.
The article lists a couple of cases where “malnutrition” was a cause of death in an elderly person in a nursing home.
Part B:
Many blogs and websites noted in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina that “people were dying of starvation in an American city!” Typical hit here, a dramatic press release issued by Congressman Bobby Rush.
So, you put together “thousands of nursing home residents dying”, along with “some nursing home residents dying of malnutrition”, and mix it with “Americans dying of starvation in a big city”, and then you add the usual 100% markup for exaggeration, and you get, “thousands of Americans are dying of starvation”.
This may be true, but do those countries have stores in every neighborhood with shelves stuffed full of food? Is there a dumpster half full of discarded food behind every restaurant? Does every household throw out significant amounts of food every day? My statement was more local in nature, when you walk down the street in a famine stricken country, I would not expect to see a Wal*Mart supercenter with an acre or two of shelves filled to the brim with cheap food.
Food in the US is plentiful and cheap. In a famine stricken country neither of those descriptors will be true.
I have sometimes tried to think what it would take to starve to death in the U.S. if someone is of able mind. Every plan I come up with gets thwarted by some type of help avaialble. It takes a long while to actually starve to death. Even though many people are skeptical of people asking for food money, I think that most people would be more than willing to help someone that truly appears to be starving. All it would take is a call to a church, relief center, or individuals. If things go too far and medical problems start to develop, 911 will bring help to anyone at anytime and a hospital stay will take care of the problem in the immediate term.
OK Seriously I had no idea how often people starved and their countries allowed it for economic reasons. From what I saw looks like India is a big offender in that area.
Back to the OP. Happy Wanderer, did your friend offer up any proof of his assertion or was this a typical case of "The “government, press, Illuminati…” is covering it up so there is no proof to offer?
In many cases it’s to artificially maintain scarcity, and thus higher prices, in the long run. In many countries this is a matter of industry and governmental policy rather than the choice of individual food companies. In Europe, surplus food is routinely dumped by the truckload, and governments pay farmers to leave their land fallow. I’d be surprised if this didn’t occur in North America as well.
