Human Errors: A Panorama of Our Glitches, from Pointless Bones to Broken Genes

by Nathan H. Lents

As of 2014, all but one of the major developed countries had an infant mortality rate below 0.5 percent. The one exception is the United States, which, at 0.58 percent, has a higher infant mortality rate than Cuba, Croatia, Macau, and New Caledonia. (This is due in large part to two particular practices by American doctors: the frequent medical induction of labor, which artificially accelerates the natural process of childbirth, and the overuse of cesarean sections. The reason C-sections are performed so often in the United States? Lawyers. Doctors fear being sued on the off chance that a C-section was needed but wasn’t performed. But tragically, these invasive abdominal surgeries often involve many fatal complications of their own.) By contrast, the infant mortality rate in Japan is 0.20 percent, and in Monaco, it’s 0.18 percent. These are relatively low risks, to be sure, but birth is still one of the riskiest moments of our lives. And in regions where medical practice is far from modern, there is still a high rate of infant mortality—a testament to how far from perfect the human reproductive system is. In Afghanistan, for instance, the United Nations estimates the current infant mortality rate at 11.5 percent. In Mali, it is 10.2 percent.