Make Death Fun

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http://causeofdeathbook.blogspot.com/

Death Has Moved

Blogging about death has moved to http://causeofdeathbook.blogspot.com/ .
Want to know if you're more likely to die from hot tap water or herpes, a coconut or a hippo, a shark or hemorrhoids? Read the book "Cause of Death" and check the blog for answers to those and other really important questions about how we die. The more you know about death, the longer you'll stay alive.

Marijuana Kills

A recent article in Scientific American cites a study showing marijuana can kill antibiotic-resistant bacteria MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus). That might be great news if it could be used for that purpose.

3: Number of deaths in the U.S. from cannabis use as reported by the CDC in 2001

5,500: Number of average annual deaths in the U.S. from Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA) as reported by the CDC between 1999 and 2005

829,600: Number of persons arrested for marijuana in 2006 as reported by the Bureau of Justice Statistics

16: Average annual mortality rate from AIDS per 100,000 U.S. state prisoners 2001-2006

6.3: Annual mortality rate for all males in the US from AIDS in 2005 (9,189 male deaths out of a total of 12,543 U.S. deaths)

LINKS

http://www.cdc.gov/eid/content/13/12/1840.htm

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/dcf/tables/drugtype.htm

http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/dcrp/tables/dcst06spt11.htm

Wash Your Hands

I was recently telling a friend of mine some of the things I learned researching death statistics for the Cause of Death book that have changed the way I do things. I’m more careful now when I cross the street, for example. And, although I’ve always been pretty good about washing my hands, I am even better about it now. It turns out there are millions of microbes that live on our hands. While most of them are harmless, many cause the illnesses that are responsible for over 10 million deaths a year in the world. In 2002, for example, at least 17% of all 57 million deaths in the world were caused by the common bugs that can live on your hands. These deadly microbe-caused diseases include flu, bronchitis, pneumonia, diarrhea, TB, measles, whooping cough, meningitis, some types of hepatitis and approx. 18% of all cancers. For more interesting info on microbes, check this out: http://www.microbeworld.org/know/important.aspx and don’t forget to wash!

Toxic Tomatoes?

Top 5 Parasitic and Infectious Disease Deaths, U.S. 2005
(not including BUGS deaths coded to “other” by the CDC)
1. Septicemia (included in “Other” worldwide deaths) 32,238
2. HIV/AIDS 12,543
3. Hepatitis 5,529
4. Meningitis 669
5. Tuberculosis 648
Estimates of total U.S. deaths from salmonella, including Salmonella-caused deaths in septicemia death totals, run between 500 and 600 per year whereas CDC coded deaths from Salmonella infections alone totaled only 30 in 2005 and 41 in 2001. Over 75% of all septicemia deaths occur over age 65.
According to research done by Margie Lees, a microbiologist at UGA’s College of Veterinary Medicine (http://www.ovpr.uga.edu/researchnews/9697fw/fatal.html), there is only one type of chicken-borne salmonella that can cause septicemia, a potentially fatal blood disease. So salmonella from tomatoes, or other vegetables, is not too likely to kill anyone and is far less dangerous than a multitude of other BUGS.
According to a 7/4/2008 article in theWashington Post, the latest salmonella scare has tomato crop losses above $100 million dollars. This result could bring on bouts of depression, with far worse consequences than salmonella-caused disease (see suicide stats below).
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/04/AR2008070400638.html)
http://www.fsis.usda.gov/FactSheets/Salmonella_Questions_&_Answers/index.asp

Americans and Guns

According to a 7/9/08 Reuters article, the editors of the New England Journal of Medicine said that the recent Supreme Court ruling striking down a strict gun control law in the U.S. capital will lead to more deaths and accidental injuries. According to Justice Antonin Scalia (who was in the 5-4 majority on the decision) citizens may prefer handguns for home defense because they “can be pointed at a burglar with one hand while the other hand dials the police.” I would agree with the New England Journal of Medicine. Based on the stats related to deaths in the U.S. from firearms, it’s more likely those citizens with easier access to guns will be pointing them at their own heads, or at the heads of other people they are mad at, than using them for self defense in their homes.
Number of firearm caused deaths in the USA, 2005
17,002 Suicides (out of 32,637 total suicides)
12,352 Homicides (out of 18,124 total homicides )
789 Accidental discharges (out of 117,809 total accidental deaths)
143 Number of private citizen justifiable homicides (out of 192 total)
http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN0938674920080709
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr56/nvsr56_10.pdf (Table 10)
http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/offenses/expanded_information/murder_homicide.html (Table 14)

Writer Commits Suicide in July

Recent news reports Sci-Fi writer Thomas M. Disch committed suicide in his New York apartment July 4th. He had been suffering from depression but I wonder if it was the summer heat that tipped the scale. According to the Centers for Disease Control, in 2004 most suicides occurred during the month of July (the least occurred in December). Although more Americans die from exposure to excessive natural cold (676 deaths in 2004) than excessive natural heat (226 deaths in 2004), if you add in the nearly 8,400 deaths from suicide June through August, heat becomes a more formidable threat. Then, again, I could be thinking about heat because it is unnaturally hot in California right now.

http://www.locusmag.com/2008/Disch_Obit.html
http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/sto/

Corn/Hormone Connection Redux

More often than not, what we put in our mouths while we’re alive, impacts how we die.
Debra Eschmeyer is the Marketing & Media Manager of the National Farm to School Network (http://www.farmtoschool.org/) and the Occidental College Center for Food & Justice (http://departments.oxy.edu/uepi/cfj/) . She works from a fifth-generation family farm in Ohio, where she continues her passion for organic farming raising heirloom fruits, vegetables, and chickens. Her blog on food safety, nuitrition sustainability and other food/health issues is recommended.

Bittersweet Posted 7/2/08 by Debra Eschmeyer “Earlier this week the Corn Refiners Association launched a $20-30 million media campaign to defend High Fructose Corn Syrup’s reputation as a quality [read: cheap] sweetner. Perfect timing as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed that the number of Americans with diabetes increased to 27 million in 2007. On top of that diabetic sundae, another 57 million Americans have pre-diabetes, a condition that vastly increases the risk of developing diabetes in the future." For more of this article see Debra's blog (http://debraeschmeyer.wordpress.com/).

Chris Cerasi Remembers His Grandmother

I never really had to deal with death until I was in my thirties. This was perhaps a mixed blessing. While distant relatives and those I was not particularly close to passed away over the years, it wasn’t until my paternal grandmother’s death in the winter of 2006 that I finally had to deal with the subject I had gratefully, yet nervously, avoided for years.

I was very close to my grandmother, whom we affectionately called “Vee” (her real name was Victoria). She had been a constant, close (sometimes too close) presence throughout my life, and our relationship was always easy, affectionate, and very loving. While she sometimes could be a dictator in her approach to family gatherings, her heart was always in the right place, and I loved her dearly. I loved her passion, her smile, her warmth, and her ability to never tire of visiting friends and family as often as she could. She was a loud, nudgy social butterfly, flitting from home to home in her well-loved car; her iconic puff of sprayed-in-place white hair often the only visible thing above the steering wheel.

When she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s after an extended hospital stay in the early ‘00s, we were devastated. I was living on the West Coast at the time and saw her less frequently due to travel and other practicalities. When I did visit for holidays and vacations, I noticed how she seemed worse each time I saw her. She forgot things. She repeated her questions and never seemed to really grasp the answers, and worst of all, she stopped wanting to go places and preferred to stay in her house by herself. While the part of me that did not want to deal with the reality of her situation hoped that she would get better, the intellectual part knew that sooner or later she was going to leave us. I tried to focus on the positive as long as I could and just enjoy seeing her, but eventually it became evident that her time was limited.

I saw her for the last time two weeks before she died. She was so frail and fragile, only a dim shadow of her former vigorous self, and my heart broke. Her head was tilted to one side, her lips moved but what she said made no sense and was repetitive and worst of all, it seemed that the best of her, the grandmother I loved who was so present and didn’t forget a thing, had long gone. When she passed away quietly two weeks later, I realized that the Vee I really knew, the Vee that was really her true, best self, had died just before she had been stricken with Alzheimer’s. That was the grandmother I remember and honor now, and that is the Vee I will always cherish. When my father went through her belongings after she died, he gave me her high school ring, which I had always liked to look at and try on. It made me feel close to her, and because it was something she herself was proud of, it made me honored to become its new owner. I wear it on a chain around my neck so that it is close to my heart. So that Vee is close to my heart, where she belongs… - Christopher Cerasi, 6/24/2008

Like Chris, many of us have experienced the death of a loved one. Send your story to autwil@comcast.net if you wish to share a CAUSE OF DEATH that has touched your life and I’ll post it on my guest blog.

For more on the most recent connection between calcium and Alzheimer’s check this out:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91891831

Shingles – caused by VOG?

It wasn’t asthma that got me on vacation in Hawaii ( I stand corrected on no air pollution in Hawaii - see blog below). It was shingles! Imagine an ice pick stuck in your sciatic nerve and you’ll get the picture. Although no-one knows what triggers an outbreak of blisters on the skin caused by the varicella-zoster (the chickenpox virus), foods high in Arginine (macademia nuts, kona coffee, etc.) appear to make it worse. Compounding my Hawaiian Arginine-rich diet was the Vog in the air on the Big Island - caused by Sulfur Dioxide pouring out of the Kilauea volcano. With a lot of Advil (advil OK, aspirin not OK for treatment of Shingles pain), my little health episode actually made it easier to stop and do nothing except enjoy the company and the view – which is what vacations are all about anyway. The good news, for those approaching a certain age, is that there is now a shingles vaccine. I highly recommend it unless you’re into discovering new types of pain.

http://www.konaweb.com/vog/index.shtml

http://virtualscratchpad.com/2008/04/blogging-vog-local-experiences-with.html

http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/shingles/shingles.htm

http://herpes-coldsores.com/diet_and_nutrition_with_herpes.htm

Asthma and Air Pollution?

I’m about to leave California for a vacation in Hawaii. Maybe I should pack an inhaler!

In a recent Wall Street Journal MarketWatch update, Pennsylvania recently joined a coalition of states and cities, including New York and California, in a lawsuit against the EPA for adopting air pollution standards that do not protect public health. You can spend a lot of interesting time comparing air quality by going here: http://www.epa.gov/aircompare/.

The biggest states (California, New York and Pennsylvania) clearly have the highest rates of carbon monoxide emissions but that doesn’t necessarily correlate to asthma prevalence or asthma deaths. California (with a childhood asthma prevalence of 7.1%) has the highest carbon monoxide emissions in the country, but is not even in the top 10 states with high rates of asthma.

Top 10 US States with high childhood asthma prevalence

1. Massachusetts 12.1%
2. Hawaii 10.9%
3. Oklahoma 10.8%
4. Maryland 10.8%
5. Rhode Island 10.5%
6. Kentucky 10.4%
7. District of Columbia 10.3%
8. Ohio 10.2%
9. New York 10.2%
10. Pennsylvania 9.9%

Source: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/ad/ad381.pdf

Per the CDC “State of Childhood Asthma, 1980-2005” research article, asthma rates vary widely by race and the disparity in asthma mortality between black and white children has risen in recent years. But states with higher black populations don’t necessarily correlate to higher asthma prevalence or asthma deaths either.

Top 10 US States with high black populations vs childhood asthma prevalence

1. Mississippi 37.1% black vs 8.4% childhood asthma
   
2. Louisiana 31.7% black vs 8.3% childhood asthma
3. Georgia 29.9% black vs 7.9% childhood asthma
4. Maryland 29.5% black vs 10.8% childhood asthma
5. South Carolina 29.0% black vs 8.1% childhood asthma
6. Alabama 26.3% black vs 8.7% childhood asthma
7. North Carolina 21.7% black vs 8.1% childhood asthma
8. Delaware 20.9% black vs 8.8% childhood asthma
9. Virginia 19.9% black vs 8.7% childhood asthma
10. Tennessee 16.9% black vs 7.3% childhood asthma

Source: http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/27000.html

Interestingly, the U.S. state with the highest death rate from asthma (2.0 per 100,000 2002-2004) and the 2^nd highest childhood asthma prevalence rate is Hawaii, which has relatively low air pollution. And the 2^nd highest country for asthma deaths in the world is New Zealand (behind the UK). http://www.asthmanz.co.nz/in_new_zealand.php

Long Life and Marijuana

Of “The Thirteen” countries with long life expectancies, five are in the top rank of annual cannabis users, including the U.S. at #12. With drug arrests on the rise, if you're one of the long living, pot smoking, U.S. citizens, you just might spend part of your long life in jail!

Although the CDC reported only 1 death from cannabinoids in the US, out of over 26,000 reported deaths from drugs in 2002 (including accidents and suicide but excluding alcohol), according to the FBI, 45.3% of all 2002 drug abuse violations were for Marijuana (which would mean about 697,100 people arrested for cannabis out of 1,538,813 total drug abuse violation arrests).

http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_02/pdf/02crime4.pdf (Crime in the US, 2002 page 4)
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance.htm#incrate (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Crime Facts at a Glance)

“The Thirteen”
Population > 10 million + life expectancy > 78 years
Country and Life expectancy

1. Japan 82.07
2. *Canada 81.16
   
3. France 80.87
4. *Australia 80.73
5. *Italy 80.07
6. *Spain 79.92
   
7. Greece 79.52
8. The Netherlands 79.25
9. Germany 79.10
10. Belgium 79.07
11. The U.K. 78.85
12. *The U.S. 78.14
    
13. Portugal 78.04

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html

Top Cannabis Using Countries (over 10% annual use age 15-64)
Country and Cannabis use

1. Papua New Guinea 29.5%
2. Micronesia Fed. State 29.1%
3. Ghana 21.5%
4. Zambia 17.7%
5. *Canada 16.8%
   
6. Sierra Leone 16.1%
7. Cyprus 14.1%
8. Nigeria 13.8%
9. New Zealand 13.4%
10. *Australia 13.3%
11. *The U.S. 12.6%
12. *Italy 11.2%
13. *Spain 11.2%
    
14. Jamaica 10.7%

http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/data-and-analysis/WDR-2007.html

Find more fun stats in the book Cause of Death: A Perfect Little Guide to What Kills Us by Jack Mingo, Erin Barrett and Lucy Autrey Wilson

And They Called the Wind Lucy

Well, not yet!

I subscribe to a biweekly online newsletter featuring current and upcoming Census Bureau data releases (see link below) which can be interesting. Today they sent an update that the 2008 Hurricane season begins June 1^st. I thought maybe they would name a storm Lucy this year but that’s not the case. There is, however, a lot of interesting information on storms and storm naming to be found.

Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory on retired names: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/retirednames.shtml

World Meterological Organization on storm names:http://www.wmo.int/pages/prog/www/tcp/Storm-naming.html

Census Bureau special feature on the north Atlantic hurricane season:
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/012006.html

To subscribe to the Census Bureau’s newsletter:
https://ask.census.gov/cgi-bin/askcensus.cfg/php/enduser/doc_serve.php?1=AvcG~woTDv8SMp~~GkYe~yL~Jvsq~yr~&2=CPUForm