This is not a memorial to Coretta King. Others have done that better than I could. Coretta passed away in her sleep on January 31, 2006 in a Mexican cancer clinic which was immediately shut down by Mexican authorities, perhaps because Coretta King died there.
You can read about Mrs. King's life at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/31/national/31cnd-coretta.html?ex=1154322000&en=6e20c6e5a347f741&ei=5087&excamp=GGGNcorretaking. My one connection with the King family was when I watched Martin Luther King and his associate hustle out of a hotel lobby in Philadelphia in 1965. He was moving too fast to connect to me.
When I heard that Mrs. King had died in Mexico, my heart went out to her and her family. I don't think that was the place for this noble and talented woman to die. But I think that I know why she took a chance on a Mexican cure for her cancer. She was born a fighter. She loved life and wanted to preserve it, including hers.
Coretta King suffered from heart attack, stroke, and cancer. These are three of the five major killer diseases we Americans face. Diabetes and lung diseases are the other two. I just learned this from a telemarketer who wants to sell me a bottle of juice that allegedly cures all five major diseases plus any other disease you can think of.
Here is an actual tabulation of deaths for 2002 taken from the site of the National Center for Health Statistics: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm:
Number of deaths: 2,443,387
Death rate: 847.3 deaths per 100,000 population
Life expectancy: 77.3 years
Number of deaths for leading causes of death:
Heart disease: 696,947
Cancer: 557,271
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 162,672
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 124,816
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 106,742
Diabetes: 73,249
Influenza/Pneumonia: 65,681
Alzheimer's disease: 58,866
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 40,974
Septicemia: 33,865
We see here that diabetes is sixth with accidents being the fifth cause of death in the United States. Of course an accident is not a disease.
For you information, words starting with neph- refer to kidney diseases.
Septicemia sounds like blood poisoning to me. Here is the definition from http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=Septicemia: "A systemic disease caused by pathogenic organisms or their toxins in the bloodstream. Also called blood poisoning."
I was right that one time.
According to http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/censusstatistic/a/aabirthrate.htm in the United States in 2002 was 13.9 per 1,000 persons. That would be 1390 per 100,000 persons. Subtracting the death rate of 847.3 we get a population increase of 543 newborns per 100,000 people or 1,565,002 new people competing for the same resources.
If you look at death is just nature's way of thinning out the population, then you might be satisfied with the death rate. Why spend money to reduce disease when the cure of those diseases would just increase the population?
There may be folks that feel that way, but I'm sure you are not one of them.
We can control the population in other ways. One way that I'm against is war.
Speaking of war, that is where we put our money. The cost of war has escalated to unbelievable proportions. The Department of Defense budget for 2006 is $419.3 billion and the President says he needs more money. The United States spent a total of $341 billion during World War II.
Finding cures for people's illnesses would reduce suffering and death. It also would reduce medical cost.
Why did Coretta King have to reach out for a cancer cure in Mexico? It's because we spend too much on war and not enough on cancer research. The Federal budget for cancer research and heart disease has been slightly lowered this year to support bird flu and other programs.
Don't expect the Federal Government to cure the major killer diseases. The money must come from foundations and individuals.
See if you can find yourself in there somewhere.
Let's stop the flow of cancer patients into Mexico through education and through support of scientific research to cure cancer.
Donate today to your favorite medical charity in memory of Coretta King.
She'll be glad you did.
God bless you, Coretta. May your rest be glorious and peaceful.
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