America is a lot better than it was 50-100 years ago but has been backsliding quite a bit. The system which is rated as being the most democratic with the least income inequality and highest potential for social mobility and the highest life expectancies and happiness indicies are what the Scandanavian countries have. The last I checked, Denmark was number 1 by quite a bit and Norway and Iceland are up there too. America has some oligarchy tendencies (Princeton studies showed this), and too much dark money in politics, superpacs (which shouldn't exist in the first place- we need an amendment to fix this) and way too much of a corporate influence- which is why we don't have universal health care here. Fortunately here in NY we have a 15/hr min wage, a ban on fracking, free public college. Those countries I mentioned actually have less overall taxes than we do and their money goes much further. Prescription drugs cost 3-5 times more in America. Hospital stays are ridiculously overpriced.

As an example of corrupt corporate influence there are 100s of chemicals banned by the WHO that are still allowed in products in America that lead to higher rates of cancer, heart disease, ADHD and higher rates of pollution that have been linked to autism also. I was reading a study earlier about a pesticide found in conventional food that is now being found in the urine of children that has been linked to ADHD. This pesticide has yet to be banned here even though it is from most of the rest of the world. The American Chemical Society has a strong lobby and they like keeping things cheap. Then we have the case of PFOA's and superfund sites and corrupt corporations like Monsanto and Dow being allowed to get away with creating a health hazard (although they're now being sued in major cities like Seattle and San Diego now for PCB contamination.)

Here is the study I read earlier.

The journal Pediatrics published a study that concludes that children exposed to organophosphate pesticides at levels common among America's children are more likely to develop attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), a disorder becoming more and more common in today's children. Researchers at Emory University [1] have found that switching children to an organic diet provides a "dramatic and immediate protective effect" against exposures to two organophosphate pesticides that are commonly used in U.S. agricultural production - malathion and chlorpyrifos. The results were published in the September 2005 issue of the scientific journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

"Immediately after substituting organic food items for the children's normal diets, the concentration of the organophosphorus pesticides found in their bodies decreased substantially to non-detectable levels until the conventional diets were re-introduced," says Dr. Lu, an assistant professor in the department of environmental and occupational health, Rollins School of Public Health, Emory University.

Twenty-three elementary-school-age children participated in a 15-day study that was divided into three parts. First the children ate their usual diet of conventionally-grown food for three days. Then they were switched to organically-grown substitutes for five days. For the final seven days, they were switched back to conventional food. The organic substitutes were mainly fruits, vegetables, juices and grain products (such as wheat) because these foods are often contaminated with organophosphates. Urine samples were collected twice a day for each child. Researchers tested the urine for signs of pesticides.

In the case of two organophosphate insecticides - malathion and chlorpyrifos - the results were startling. Signs of these two chemicals were found in the urine in the first part of the study. Almost immediately after the children switched to an organic diet, these chemicals could not be detected. The chemicals showed up again when the children switched back to their normal diet.

The researchers said, "We were able to demonstrate that an organic diet provides a dramatic and immediate protective effect against exposures to organophosphorus pesticides that are commonly used in agriculture