Starving in the Shadow of Plenty

Book excerpt: President Ronald Reagans chief advisor on domestic affairs announced in December 1980 that poverty has been virtually wiped out in the United States and the systems of government aid have been a brilliant success. Now, Starving in the Shadow of Plenty lays bare the horrifying truth. For the first time since Robert Kennedy traveled the muddy back roads of Mississippi and the war on poverty rose and fell, starvation in America is documented. Loretta Schwartz-Nobel, twice winner of the Robert Kennedy Memorial Award for articles on hunger, has retraced Kennedys steps and found that Marasmus and Kwashiorkor, the most extreme diseases of protein and calorie deficiency, still exist in the United States today. The author spent seven years traveling across the country and speaking to the hungry in rural shacks, urban ghettos, on Indian reservations and in previously middle class homes. Her book is their story, told in their own words. But it is also the story of federal corruption and abuse. The government of the United States turns countless numbers of eligible people away from existing food programs, it allows millions of infants to be malnourished and it seems to be oblivious to citizens who are starving and dying. Starving in the Shadow of Plenty is the first in a series on hunger in America. The authors newest book, Growing Up Empty, the voices and politics of starving children in America, a 25 year retrospective, will be published by Harper Collins, Cliff Street Books in 2002.