The people who write these papers and their reviewers don't take such elementary facts into account. The actual answer is that US infant mortality has stayed a

The people who write these papers and their reviewers don't take such elementary facts into account. The actual answer is that US infant mortality has stayed almost constant during those 26 years, and was so low to start with that even reducing it to zero wouldn't have made much change in overall mortality. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1041693/united-states-all-time-child-mortality-rate/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1041693/united-states-al... The linked article also goes into more details.