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Friday, August 30, 1991 / University Daily Kansan
Drop in heart disease lengthens life span in U.S. by two months
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The U.S. life span is creeping upward and now stands at 75 years and five months. The government says people can expect to live longer because they're less likely to die of heart failure.
A Department of Health and Human Services report issued yesterday said that overall, U.S. citizens' life expectancies increased two months from 1989 to 1990. That means males born last year can expect to live 72 years on average; females, 78 years, 10 months.
"A major factor contributing to that is heart disease," said Harry Rosenberg, chief of the department's mortality statistics branch.
Heart disease remained the biggest killer in 1990. It caused 725, 101 deaths, but that was 1.4 percent fewer than in 1989.
Heart disease has been on the decline for more than a decade, in part because U.S. citizens have changed the way they live, said Scott Ballin, a vice president of the National Heart Association.
"You have people smoking less,
The study said whites can expect to live longer than African-Americans, and white females have the greatest longevity of all. Here's how life expectancy cut across American society;
exercising more and changing their diet," Ballin said. Advances in treating heart problems also allow more people to survive, he said.
- White males, 72 years, seven months; unchanged from a year earlier
- White females, 79 years, four months; about two months longer than in 1989.
African-American males, 66 years; nearly 10 months longer than in 1989 and a year and a month longer than in 1988.
African-American females, 74 years, six months, a half-year longer than in 1989 and up 13 months from 1988.
The gap between African-American and white life spans has fluctuated around six years since the mid-1970s. The most recent numbers showed a slight narrowing of the gap. African-Americans born in 1990 on average will die five years, eight months earl-
er tnan whites. A year earlier, their life spans were six years, two months shorter than whites.
African-Americans die younger than whites mainly because they are more likely to suffer a heart attack, get cancer or have a stroke. Rosenberg and colleagues found that the risk of catching the incurable disease AIDS or of being murdered, he said.
The life span for African-American males lagged nearly seven years behind that of white males. For females, the gap between the races was nearly five years.
Some of the causes of death are more common in poor districts of big cities. Acquired immune deficiency syndrome can be caught when intravenous drug users share needles. Homicidal violence is largely an urban phenomenon.
Rosenberg said he couldn't explain why African-Americans were more likely than whites to die of cancer, heart disease or stroke.
Other findings in the report:
— Alogether, 2,162,000 people died in the United States last year.
AIDS killed 24,120 in 1990, up 13 percent from 1989.
in the United States last year.
NPSID 24 120 in 1990, up 13
Cuban prisoners release sick hostage, then spell demands to Miami reporter
The Associated Press
TALLADEGA, Ala. — Cuban inmates fight deportation freed one of us hostages — a woman in need of medical treatment — in exchange for a meeting with a newspaper reporter, authorities said.
Reporter Cynthia Corzo of the Spanish-language edition of *The Miami Herald*, El Nuevo Herald, said prison secretary Kitty Suddeth, was released Wednesday night from the maximum-security cellblock seized eight days ago.
"She looked a bit shaken," Corzo said. "She was crying, but she kept saying. 'I'm all right.' I'm all right."
After the release, Corzo and photographer Carlos Guerrero met with the inmates through a grille outside the cellblock. Guerrero said they met camps of up to 10 prisoners while more than 100 officers in red gear stood by.
Suddeth was among 10 prison workers taken hostage during the takeover Aug. 21 at the Talladega Federal Correctional Institution.
Federal prison officials said in a
statement that she required medical treatment. Warden Roger F. Scott would not elaborate.
At a news conference, Corzo said the inmates demanded that all deportations of Cubans be halted.
"More than one did say they want a peaceful resolution as soon as possible," she told Miami TV station WPLG. "They did not make any threats to the hostages, and they indicated that all the hostages were fine."
The besieged cellblock houses 121 Cubans facing deportation for crimes committed in the United States. The prisoners are among thousands of Cubans who arrived in this country during the 1980 Mariel boatlift, and some have said they would rather die than return to their homeland.
Corzo has written about Cuban inmates for El Nuevo Herald. His name and the names of two other reporters were on a sign posted by the inmates on the unit's roof Wednesday morning.
hostages and detainees requiring treatment," Scott said. Hours later, the inmates freed one hostage, and the meeting took place.
Corzo spoke with the inmates by bullhorn from outside the cellblock and told them she could tell readers their story if they would release "all
Scott didn't say how many hostages need treatment but has said one inmate has diabetes.
Corzo said that the ailing inmates have decided not to leave the cellblock.
She said the inmates told her they wanted to meet with lawyer Gary Leshaw, who played a role in negotiations four years ago during a Cuban inmates' uprising in Atlanta, and Corretta Scott King, widow of Martin Luther King Jr.
Corzo, 23, said the inmates had requested food but had not received any. She said they had only water and coffee. A sign placed on the cellblock roof by inmates Wednesday said, "We aren't hungry for food but freedom."
Some of the Cubans "can be considered among the most difficult, aggressive, violent and incorrigible inmates ever held by the Bureau of Prisons," Scott said.
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