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Apparently, it got better before it got crueler, because in 1998, the CDC reported an infant-mortality rate of 7.2, putting just behind Cuba for 28th place. (Hong Kong and Sweden were the best two places to be born in 1998.) In 1999 and 2000, the number improved to 7.1 and 7.0, exactly where we are now. So that makes the very next statement Kristof uses somewhat suspect:

"America's children are at greater risk than they've been in for at least a decade," said Dr. Irwin Redlener, associate dean at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University and president of the Children's Health Fund.

Neither Kristof nor Redlener are apparently capable of performing any research on the subject before commenting. In just a few quick keystrokes, I located the applicable table at the CDC and found out that perinatal death rates in the US have declined quickly over the past decade, going from 7.6 in 1995 to 7.0 in 2002 -- which, as Kristof reports, represented an increase from 6.9 (not 6.8) the previous year. In fact, the perinatal death rate was 9.1 in 1990, and 10.7 in 1985, showing tremendous progress over the past generation.

But the false impression given by Kristof on infant mortality in the US only partly accounted for the bruise on my chin at breakfast. The rest of the injury comes from Kristof's assertion that China protects infants better than the US:

As readers know, I complain regularly about the Chinese government's brutality in imprisoning dissidents, Christians and, lately, Zhao Yan, a New York Times colleague in Beijing. Yet for all their ruthlessness, China's dictators have managed to drive down the infant mortality rate in Beijing to 4.6 per thousand; in contrast, New York City's rate is 6.5.

Kristof misleads his readers with that comparison. Using the CIA Factbook entry for China -- a source that Kristof uses for Cuba -- we find out that China has an astronomical infant-mortality rate of 25.28, a rate that has not been seen in the US since the 1960s. Perhaps the rate is better in Beijing, but it hardly matters if the rest of the country has that rate. It qualifies as cherry-picking of the worst order on Kristof's part.

Kristof also leaves out another issue with China and its infants: its forced-abortion policy aimed at population control. These infants don't get counted in China or Beijing as infant deaths, and yet many thousands of them have been slaughtered to please the dictators in the Beijing that Kristof regards so highly. The notion of using China as an example of child care is so noxious that it almost defies description. It equates to using Juan Corona as a poster child for supporting migrant workers, or Richard Speck as a spokesman for a nurse's union."

Statistical comparisons are only possible if every sample uses the same standards for defining critical terms like infant mortality. If, as some have reported, some nations don't count a child as a live birth until a day or so after delivery, then children born very prematurely or with severe birth defects who die on the same day aren't include. In the US, every live birth is included in the statistic, even for those babies who die the same day.

Just goes to show once again that the New York Times is not a credible source for news on scientific matters.