Disease Increases: Has the West's Health Really Improved?

CDC Wonder is an interesting tool to play with. It's an online US data base that collects data on the environment, population heath, births, and deaths. You can create tables or graphs, specifying by year, age, location etc. For instance, using this tool you can ascertain the mortality rate of certain diseases, and get an idea of how those diseases have risen or fallen over time. Which is exactly what I did. What I found was huge growth in particular of mortality for neurological or autoimmune diseases. These are usually chronic diseases, that progressively get worse over a period of years, as opposed to a sudden onset infection that can kill within days or weeks. The results were very startling, and my mind raced to think of all the different factors that have changed over time that could account for this huge rise in disease. My first thought was neurotoxic substances such as aluminium, mercury, fluoride. Make of it what you will.