Death Cause Comparisons

Commenters debate the importance of a low death toll from a specific cause (e.g., ~90 US deaths/year) by contrasting it with major killers like car crashes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer, arguing over preventability and statistical relevance.

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Keywords

one.aspx canada.ca US www.pnas HN MAID wikipedia.org CDC DUI mercola.com deaths death accidents die causes people die car cause medical accident

Sample Comments

pratik661 Apr 24, 2020 View on HN

Read the article. It’s referring to mortality from other causes (road accidents/rail accidents,etc)

notjtrig Feb 3, 2021 View on HN

The tiny, tiny percentage of interactions that are fatal account for the largest causes of death for certain groups.source: https://www.pnas.org/content/116/34/16793

blueflow May 15, 2024 View on HN

Be realistic, you are more likely to die from cardiovascular issues or car crashes.

jhugo Apr 10, 2024 View on HN

Fair, but globally it causes something like 60 thousand deaths per year (out of 55 million or so). That’s nothing to sniff at, but certainly in the realm of something you are very unlikely to die from. For comparison, cardiovascular disease kills about 17 million people per year.

danuker Jun 25, 2021 View on HN

The top risk factors for death confirm what you say, sadly.https://ourworldindata.org/causes-of-death#the-number-of-dea...

placeybordeaux Mar 3, 2016 View on HN

90 deaths per year in the US is a absolutely tiny amount. You are more at risk for almost any disease, not to mention getting hit by a car.

mcv Sep 17, 2013 View on HN

That's a matter of numbers. Lots of people die in unfortunate ways. I'd just rather not be one of them.

vivaamerica1 Dec 16, 2017 View on HN

this is like saying 99.9% of the time cause of death is either due to sickness, old age, or accident.

arghwhat Nov 6, 2024 View on HN

I’m sorry, but I don’t see the relevance of your question.Does it somehow make it less relevant to fix a cause of death because more people die of other unrelated causes?Far more people die in accidents than any other causes of death in the U.S., seemingly only beat by cancer and heart disease. That doesn’t make every other cause of death any less troubling or worth fixing, and it certainly does not mean that one should hold back existing treatments for “lesser” deaths or injuries.Any a

jtbayly Jun 25, 2020 View on HN

Seems pretty dumb to only compare it to causes of death that add up to 7% of deaths.