By THOMAS HARGROVE and LEE BOWMAN, Scripps Howard News Service

A first-of-its-kind study has found that younger, well-educated and wealthy people are more likely to be autopsied when they die.

More men than women are autopsied. And blacks, Hispanics, Asians and Native Americans are more likely to be autopsied than whites.

Hundreds of thousands of death certificates filed every year in the United States are wrong, meaning we don't really know what's killing Americans.

The erroneous death certificates cause medical researchers to look at the wrong health threats, and mislead people to the real diseases that run in their families.

Hundreds of thousands of death certificates filed every year in the United States are wrong, meaning we don't really know what's killing Americans.

The erroneous death certificates cause medical researchers to look at the wrong health threats, and mislead people to the real diseases that run in their families.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a few months will launch a revolutionary surveillance program to study why nearly 5,000 babies die unexpectedly and mysteriously each year.

PITTSBURGH -- America grossly undercounts the number of babies who suffocate in avoidable sleeping accidents, top medical authorities and child safety advocates agreed in a first-of-its-kind gathering to combat sudden infant death.

PITTSBURGH -- America grossly undercounts the number of babies who suffocate in avoidable sleeping accidents, top medical authorities and child safety advocates agreed in a first-of-its-kind gathering to combat sudden infant death.

PITTSBURGH -- Child-safety advocates assembled here Friday to consider reform measures, including new federal legislation, to improve the investigation and prevention of sudden infant death.

Idaho remains the only state in the country that doesn't give special attention to the deaths of children following the collapse this week of a reform bill in the legislature.

A record number of babies in the United States officially died of "unknown causes" according to the latest federal statistics, evidence of growing medical uncertainty about sudden infant death.

At the same time, reported cases of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome held steady at historically low levels.

WASHINGTON -- Influential members of Congress and child safety advocates are working to change how America investigates and diagnoses more than 4,000 sudden infant deaths each year.