Morbid Statistics
Tuesday, July 18th, 2006 11:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robinturnerI’m a sucker for statistics, especially morbid statistics, so I was particularly pleased to find these causes of death for 2001 (USA figures):
(Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, quoted in Scientific American)
Note that this is 2001, the year of 9/11, and your heart was still 235 times more likely to kill you than a terrorist. We can assume that in a more typical year, your chances of succumbing to a heart attack rather than a terrorist attack are so great as to be, for all practical purposes, inevitable. To get the ratio down to something worth calculating, you would have to take a plane to Baghdad and walk around draped in an American flag. To get your chances of being murdered in some more mundane way up to the risk of heart disease or cancer, there are more practical alternatives, like making friends with Colombian cocaine dealers.
| Terrorist attacks | 2,978 |
| Other murders | 17,330 |
| Suicide | 30,622 |
| Accidents | 101,537 |
| Cancer | 553,768 |
| Heart disease | 700,142 |
Note that this is 2001, the year of 9/11, and your heart was still 235 times more likely to kill you than a terrorist. We can assume that in a more typical year, your chances of succumbing to a heart attack rather than a terrorist attack are so great as to be, for all practical purposes, inevitable. To get the ratio down to something worth calculating, you would have to take a plane to Baghdad and walk around draped in an American flag. To get your chances of being murdered in some more mundane way up to the risk of heart disease or cancer, there are more practical alternatives, like making friends with Colombian cocaine dealers.
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no subject
Date: 2006-07-18 11:01 am (UTC)Unlike, say, Britain in the 70s, 80s and 90s when terrorist attacks funded from the US were common.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-18 02:05 pm (UTC)Yet most of these relatives eat very poorly (not that I'm a poster child for good nutrition, but I know my way around leafy greens and lean protein), and smoke like chimneys. Yet I would never presume to send them emails saying "OMG coronary occlusion!"
no subject
Date: 2006-07-18 10:45 pm (UTC)balancing risks...
Date: 2006-07-19 05:14 pm (UTC)my fiance does health care economics at a think tank. the leading cause of death in the USA, for people under the expected age curve, is diabetes, and it's only increasing.
So when you have that alcohol don't forget to have a sutlac or kunefe!
Re: balancing risks...
Date: 2006-07-21 02:20 am (UTC)