The government has gotten more corrupt over the last 15 years. The U.S. government is now more corrupt than the governments of France, Austria, Uruguay, Hong Kong, Japan, and Ireland, judging from the Corruption Perceptions Index. In 2008, the U.S. was less corrupt than countries like Uruguay and France, but that is no longer true. (Even back in 2008, the U.S. was more corrupt than a few countries, such as Sweden and the United Kingdom).
But many areas of life continue to improve in America. For example, hospital safety has improved after a brief drop during the pandemic, reports Axios:
Improved safety practices led 200,000 more patients to survive hospitalization in 2023 and 2024 than they would have four years earlier, per a new analysis on patient safety from the American Hospital Association and Vizient. The analysis indicates not only a rebound but an improvement in hospital safety after the pandemic, when federal data previously showed a decline….Vizient identified 715 general, acute care hospitals for which it had 18 quarters of data from beginning in the fourth quarter of 2019 through the first quarter of 2024….
Hospitals saw higher volumes and patients with more complex needs in the later quarters. However, patients in the first quarter of 2024 were still, on average, 20% more likely to survive given the severity of their illness compared to the fourth quarter of 2019.…Central line-associated bloodstream infections (CLABSI) and catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTI) are often used as a measure of patient safety because the two healthcare-associated infections are largely considered preventable. Both were lower in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the fourth quarter of 2019, per the report….but Patient volumes continue to rise and there are shortages of some health care professionals, both of which have been found to threaten the quality of care.
Medicine is improving. Scientists have developed tiny robots made of human cells to repair damaged cells. Nanorobots are also being used to fight cancer by cutting off the blood supply of tumors.
Doctors recently used a placenta to restore a woman’s destroyed face after an explosion.
A man received the world’s first whole-eye and face transplant in an operation at NYU Langone Health. A woman received her sister’s womb in the first womb transplant in the United Kingdom.
A virus is being used to cure deafness in new gene therapy.
A genetically-modified chicken lays eggs that people allergic to eggs can eat. Scientists have genetically engineered a cow that produces human insulin in its milk.
Scientists have genetically engineered a fly species to eat more waste.
Genetic engineering recently produced pork that people who are allergic to pork can eat.
