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But that information, counter to what your doctor was saying, would not be nearly as effective, or convincing enough to get on the news n the first place

Yes because the truth is just soooo boring.

if the medical field did not have a long history or getting things wrong spectacularly

Say what? While sometimes science goes down some wrong paths, modern medicine has a spectacular track record. They have DOUBLED live expectancies in the last one hundred years. In what bizarro universe is that somehow a failure?

and was not widely known as being completely corrupted by money.

Medicine is no more corrupted by money than any other profession and arguably less so than many. You'll have a hard time convincing me that journalism is some paragon of integrity and journalists are the ones convincing people of a (false) link between a treatment and a disease.

Also it would of helped if they had not used mercury in the shots.

There is no evidence that mercury that used to be in some vaccines ever caused a problem.

While not the UK, the CDC here in the US did go so far as to declare an epidemic of Pertussis in Washington state:

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6128a1.htm

Most of the medical professionals and vetrinarians in my area of southwest Utah know about it.

It's no secret.

People gotta live somewhere. Fires, floods, earthquakes, malaria, congressmen, natural radiation, natural heavy metals in ground water... every place has some problem.

It isn't like we are talking about bubonic plague running rampant. What should the government do? Spray bleach over everything? Kick people off their own property?

Funny you mention that: the bubonic plague is endemic throughout the American southwest and there are reported cases in people every year. Prairie dogs, among other rodents, carry it. (Most common cause of infection is outdoor cats getting plague-infected fleas that have left dead prairie dogs, then bringing the disease home to their owners.)

And as for the where-should-we-live, I made a map of natural disasters in the US a while ago when people were on about how anyone would be dumb enough to live in Norman, Oklahoma. Between hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, tidal waves, forest fires, flash floods, bubonic plague, volcanoes, and a couple of other things, the only place I've found that looks fairly safe in the entire US is somewhat east of Pocatello, Idaho.

Suicide isn't a subset of Homicide, but even if HALF of those were suicides, there would still be more gun homicides than everything else combined.

According to the CDC there were 19,392 gun related suicides, so over twice as many as homicides.

Sometimes the NRA column in the TeaParty newsletter isn't the most reliable source of facts.

before someone tries to compare it to owning a car, i would like to point out that a gun is specifically for killing.

And yet more people die in/because of cars, every day, than guns.

Makes ya think... at least, it should.

But to me, mine are kept in a safe that is secured to the floor in my house - they aren't getting stolen, so that doesn't concern me.

Until you get killed by a stolen gun.

Presuming OP isn't a gang banger or dope dealer, the chances of that happening are statistically insignificant.

Yes, Guns are just as dangerous as matches, driving a car, running with scissors and swimming in a public pool.

All of these things kill people. In fact, (PDF link) fire, drowning and car accidents kill more people per year than anything else. Actually, that's not true. Matches, Cars and Swimming pools kill nobody if they are left just sitting there. It takes human interaction to actually make these objects dangerous.

That's not one study, the CDC has reliable data that firearms are more often used for suicide than for the purposes of self defense. http://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/pdf/10LCID_Violence_Related_Injury_Deaths_2010-a.pdf

Bottom line here is that if you gun nuts would actually admit that we don't have a violence problem in the US, we have a gun problem, we might actually make some progress towards solving things. But, when you can't address the weapon used in 2/3 of all homocides and a similar proportion of suicides without RWNJ throwing tantrums, it makes it really challenging to do anything about it.

They really should do some actual investigating before just locking him up. If he had plans for bombs, or bombs, or some sort of credible weapon, then yeah you can arrest him. Until then, keep an eye on him. They do shit like this blowing things out of proportion, while some crazy person is really planning on doing it, but they don't do their jobs. It should have been pretty easy to get a search warrant for his premises and then to have actually searched them.

School shootings aren't really that common, I agree that it happens more often than it has in the past, but more kids are killed by drunk drivers than by mass shootings. Of the 1,210 traffic deaths among children ages 0 to 14 years in 2010, 211 (17%) involved an alcohol-impaired driver. Out of those 211 deaths, 131 (62 percent) were riding with the drunk driver

Essentially the constitution means nothing if they say the magic words "National Security". You think you have rights sorry we think you are a threat to "National Security" we can lock you up. No evidence. No judge. No jury. No Press. No rules apply to us we are protecting "National Security". This is the same logic every dictatorship has used throughout history. How big a threat is Al Qaeda and the Talaban really? In all their attacks on the US through out all history they have killed 4400+/- people. And 4488+/- of our troops in their country. So less than 10,000 US deaths due to Al Qaeda and the Talaban over the last 17 years give or take depending on when you say Al Qaeda formed. So the average death tole is 588 US citizens per year due to Al Qaeda and the Talaban actions. How does this compare to other threats to "National Security" From the CDC Report on death statics http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr61/nvsr61_04.pdf This ranks right up there with accidental deaths from firearms and a bad case of the flu. Don't get me wrong. I believe those responsible for acts of violence should be punished and a military response to 911 was the right thing to do. When you look at the actual impact based on the death toll the security of our country was not and has never been at stake. I do not feel less fearful today or more free today. I am much more fearful of loosing my rights and freedoms to actions of our government than I am to those of Al Qaeda, the Talaban and terrorism in general.

but we are a tiny minority

No, really we're not that rare. According to CDC data, about 1 in 9 women in the U.S. struggle with infertility.

By comparison, only about 1 in 26 in the U.S. are LGBT. African-Americans make up about 1 in 8 people in the U.S.

Those two groups are considered large enough to drive major policy, but infertile couples are ignored and it's quite difficult to even get the condition covered by a reasonable amount of health insurance.

As 9/11 was the only significant terrorist-based airline disaster in my lifetime (and I have more years before 2001 than after), I am quite comfortable saying that we don't need the TSA.

But even if we say that there's a slightly increased chance of a disaster without the TSA... terrorists could detonate a bomb aboard two 747 flights every day, every year, and it would still be a distant third cause of death for US citizens.

Genetic screening gets accusations of racism, fascism, and eugenics. It's absolutely reprehensible and an extremely easy target for their opponents. No one endorses that.

You might want to go back and visit the McCarthy era and a few other events (Tuskegeeonly being one instance) to see how recently those three actions were not only tolerated, but actively pursued. Then realize that some of those involved in those activities are still living, and that our current state of enlightenment is not as deep as you may think, especially given some of the divisive rhetoric currently surrounding topics like immigration, drugs, abortion, guns, etc and how that compares to the not so distant past.

Personally, I feel if they take your fingerprints during an arrest, and then don't charge you or you're found innocent, all records relating to that arrest must be expunged, such as photos, fingerprints, etc. Does it harm future police work? Yes. But so does not fingerprinting, photographing, and DNA sequencing everyone in the population. Just think how much easier police work would be if we could just feed a spec of dust or a photo to the computer and get the guilty party out the other end. After all, if you have nothing to hide....

It is by no means "a major cause of death".

So tens of thousands of deaths each year (source CDC) is not a major cause of death? What do you consider a major cause of death? And hundreds of thousands of non-lethal infections. Even ignoring the pain and suffering component the financial cost is enormous.

Unless you are working on a surgical field where near absolute sterility is required, using the hand sanitizer after every patient contact and washing your hands after a few rounds of the hand sanitizer works as well as OCD hand washing.

The effectiveness of alcohol based hand sanitizers is debatable and they are known to be less effective than hand washing.

Then there are a number of other vectors for microbial transmission that this 1984-esque system doesn't address - stethoscopes and other instruments, pens, ties, lab coats.

All true but hand transmission is the biggest among them and we know that hand washing is an effective mitigation technique.

According to this, "it has been estimated that hospitalacquired infections are responsible for 80,000 deaths in the United States and 5,000 deaths in the United Kingdom." "Compliance rates were ... lower among physicians (32%)." So only 32% of doctors are washing their hands, killing 80,000 people per year. I will let the reader decide whether they want to compare this to the deaths caused by automobiles (32,367) or handguns (31,672), but apparently keeping hands clean in hospitals is a serious public health problem, and one that, of all people, hospital administrators, doctors and nurses should all be doing everything they can to fix it.

The good news is that micromanagement works: "The majority of the time, the situations that were associated with a higher compliance rate were those having to do with dirty tasks, the introduction of alcoholbased hand rub or gel, performance feedback, and accessibility of materials."

This isn't about monitoring bathroom breaks, it is about monitoring basic competence to do your job. A patient is supposed to end a hospital visit healthier than they started, and if health care professionals are doing things that make that goal more difficult then they are failing at their job. It's not the same as, say, monitoring the number of lines of code that a developer writes (where there is, at best, a tenuous relationship between the measured value and the quality of software - and probably none at all), it is a well-documented and serious problem that kills people. It's more like measuring whether a developer leaves his workstation turned off all day. Washing hands regularly is a necessary though not sufficient condition to make people healthy in a hospital, and if constant monitoring is required to get more than 1/3 of doctors to do it, then so be it.

Cooking fire related deaths: http://www.nfpa.org/assets/files/pdf/os.homes.pdf

Pre-vaccine related chicken pox deaths: http://www.cdc.gov/chickenpox/surveillance.html

A person is 4 times more likely to die from a home cooked meal than from chicken pox without vaccination.

MSG? Why is that in vaccines? To enhance their flavor?

MSG is apparently used as a stabilizer.

Per the CDC:
For those who are sexually active, condoms may lower the risk of HPV infection. To be most effective, they should be used with every sex act, from start to finish. Condoms may also lower the risk of developing HPV-related diseases, such as genital warts and cervical cancer. But HPV can infect areas that are not covered by a condom - so condoms may not fully protect against HPV.
People can also lower their chances of getting HPV by being in a faithful relationship with one partner; limiting their number of sex partners; and being with a partner who has had no or few prior sex partners. But even people with only one lifetime sex partner can get HPV. And it may not be possible to determine if a partner who has been sexually active in the past is currently infected. Not having sex is the only sure way to avoid HPV.

http://www.cdc.gov/hpv/prevention.html

Overall, they recommend the vaccine, but they acknowledge both that there are alternatives and the vaccine is not a cure-all.

OTOH, my daughter will NOT get the cervical cancer vaccine, because HPV is preventable in behavior

Preventable only if your daughter has no intimate sexual relationships ever.

Who is at risk for HPV?

Anyone who is having (or has ever had) sex can get HPV. HPV is so common that nearly all sexually-active men and women get it at some point in their lives. This is true even for people who only have sex with one person in their lifetime.

How do people get HPV?

HPV is passed on through genital contact, most often during vaginal and anal sex. HPV may also be passed on during oral sex and genital-to-genital contact. HPV can be passed on between straight and same-sex partners --- even when the infected person has no signs or symptoms.

Most infected persons do not realize they are infected, or that they are passing HPV on to a sex partner. A person can still have HPV, even if years have passed since he or she has had sexual contact with an infected person. It is also possible to get more than one type of HPV.

Genital HPV Infection - Fact Sheet

Wrong. Here is data straight from the CDC website last updated in 2011. http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/additives.htm
They DO put MSG in vaccines, and many other nasties I didn't even mention like Formaldehyde. And mercury is still in there. Mod me as flamebait cause you disagree with hard facts, I don't care I got karma to burn.

Why do you think that HPV is "incredibly rare"?

Population of US : ~251 million [http://www.census.gov/popclock/]
Population of US with HPV : ~79 million [http://www.cdc.gov/std/HPV/STDFact-HPV.htm]

That is ~31% of the population of a country which is aware of the disease and actively fighting it.

Actually, MSG is indeed present in certain vaccines as a stabilizer. Reports of its toxicity are, of course, bunkum, but it is there.

I took the new TDaP vaccine last year (Tetanus, Diphtheria, and Pertussis). It made my whole upper arm, from shoulder to elbow, turn black and I was unable to move it for 2 days... 2 days I spent the barely moving with intense fatigue and a low grade fever. None of this is unheard of. Now I've had a few TD (Tetanus/Diphtheria) shots over the years and never had a reaction before, and I don't suffer from any allergies. So, if this is what the current Pertussis vaccine does, what horrors were wrought by the previous one? Was it really that much worse?

(As others have pointed out)
drunk driving != deaths from alcohol.
I'm fine with quoting "all firearm-related deaths", but how about you compare that with "all alcohol related deaths"?
http://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/alcohol-use.htm says approximately 80,000 alcohol-related deaths per year.

In 2011, 31,000 people died firearm-related deaths.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_gun_deaths_are_in_the_US_every_year

In 2010, there were 10,000 deaths due to drunk driving, and that number is falling.

http://www.centurycouncil.org/drunk-driving/drunk-driving-fatalities-national-statistics

More crap and bullshit from the anti-gun-control crowd.

All but 11,000 of those gun related deaths were from suicide, so the number of innocent victims are much closer to drunk driving than it you are presenting.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/homicide.htm

Many of the remaining deaths were at the hands of repeat offenders, meaning that meaningful prison reforms to lower our recidivism rate would be more effective than gun control. For example, in Illinois, from 1990-2000, 42% of homicides were at the hands of people with at least one felony conviction.
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=201308

Also, gun related deaths are down 49% since 1993, so I'm no sure why you are using that to exonerate drunk driving, but condemn firearms.
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/05/07/gun-homicide-rate-down-49-since-1993-peak-public-unaware/

This, despite there being more firearms in the country since that time.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/150353/self-reported-gun-ownership-highest-1993.aspx

RTFA:

http://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impaired-drv_factsheet.html

http://www.cdc.gov/Motorvehiclesafety/Impaired_Driving/data.html

http://www.cdc.gov/Motorvehiclesafety/Impaired_Driving/bac.html

RTFA:

http://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impaired-drv_factsheet.html

http://www.cdc.gov/Motorvehiclesafety/Impaired_Driving/data.html

http://www.cdc.gov/Motorvehiclesafety/Impaired_Driving/bac.html

RTFA:

http://www.cdc.gov/motorvehiclesafety/impaired_driving/impaired-drv_factsheet.html

http://www.cdc.gov/Motorvehiclesafety/Impaired_Driving/data.html

http://www.cdc.gov/Motorvehiclesafety/Impaired_Driving/bac.html

While it does sound like you are responsible (presuming you are the ONLY one with the combination to the safe containing the loaded gun) and you have a good attitude regarding training, I have to disagree with your last statement.

Since Newtown, there have been a number of compilations of shooting injuries in the news, and a number of them have been gun owners shooting innocent bystanders or themselves whilst cleaning their guns. The gun deaths per year number roughly 32,000 in the US whereas the swimming deaths per year number only about 3880.

The bottom line is that you are absolutely right about needing good firearms training. Unfortunately we can't seem to require people to be well trained before purchasing a firearm. We'll let any old schmoe have one - and the results are obvious.

Or if you have a gun, perhaps you should be worried that you will die because of that gun (98%+ of all domestic deaths are caused by a gun in the house, not by external gun).

I'm in favor of gun control laws, but Jesus Christ that's a stupid claim to make.

Here are the real statistics for cause of death and suicide is the most common cause of firearm related death., but suicide is only the tenth most common cause of death and makes up only 2% of the most common deaths and firearm related sucides are only about half of that, so that would put them around 1%

Perhaps you meant that 98% of firearm related deaths are due to the homeowner's firearm? Once again, no. Out of the 11,078 homicides in 2010, you're claiming that 10,855 were committed with the homeowner's gun and only 223 involved a gun owned by someone else.

That is an insane claim to make and there is absolutely no evidence to back it up.

Or if you have a gun, perhaps you should be worried that you will die because of that gun (98%+ of all domestic deaths are caused by a gun in the house, not by external gun).

I'm in favor of gun control laws, but Jesus Christ that's a stupid claim to make.

Here are the real statistics for cause of death and suicide is the most common cause of firearm related death., but suicide is only the tenth most common cause of death and makes up only 2% of the most common deaths and firearm related sucides are only about half of that, so that would put them around 1%

Perhaps you meant that 98% of firearm related deaths are due to the homeowner's firearm? Once again, no. Out of the 11,078 homicides in 2010, you're claiming that 10,855 were committed with the homeowner's gun and only 223 involved a gun owned by someone else.

That is an insane claim to make and there is absolutely no evidence to back it up.

but I would think 500C is a bit unusual for an engine to operate at. That's roughly 900F, well above the melting point of, say, lead, and getting close to that of aluminum or magnesium.

If you pop open the hood and look along the sides of the engines, you'll notice that even though your block is aluminum, your exhaust manifold is not. The operating temperature of that will vary from 500 to 1000F for a V6 or V8. It will be higher if it is a rotary engine, or turbo-charged. A turbo-charger works by taking the pressure of the exhaust and using that to drive a turbine that compresses air and feeds it into the intake -- as a result, the exhaust will be at a much higher pressure, typically 9-12 PSI, and that results in the excess heat not dissipating as quickly. 1000F is easily attainable in a turbo-charged engine, like those typically found on the higher-end vehicles this refrigerant was/is installed in.

So by the time your engine block has reached 500C, you should already have run a good ways away.

As indicated earlier, the engine block is not the only source of heat under the hood, nor is it the hottest location. Also, the ignition temperature of gasoline can be much lower than 280C -- it can be as low as 232C (495F).

tetraflouropropene sounds like a hard chemical to aerosolize, which is also a condition needed for it to release HF.

It is in a closed loop refrigeration system. The typical pressures for the "high" side of a typical system is 200-350 PSI. Needless to say, a leak in the system would result in already-heated liquid that is designed to vaporize at 15-25 PSI being released into the atmosphere (at zero PSI)... which makes converting it to a gaseous state a simple matter of poking a hole somewhere in either loop; Though it would be somewhat more disasterous on the "high" side of the compressor.

So to recap:
Your understanding of physics is based on incorrect assumptions, and is incomplete as well.

Can't be much more dangerous than gasoline, which can kill you under far less unusual circumstances.

Yes, if you drink it I suppose. But many people have been doused in gasoline and unless they are lit on fire, find that it simply stinks and itches. And in many cases, people have survived being burned by gasoline spills that have caught fire. The same can not be said of anyone exposed to hydrofluoric acid. The CDC has a few things to say about it... namely that it can be used as a chemical weapon and is exceptionally toxic and fatal even in small amounts. Gasoline on the other hand...

This doesn't appear to be the case. Look, for example at this reference, where several magnets had stuck together and yet caused problems. These appear to have been larger than buckyballs, but the idea is that they can loop back and pinch the bowel even if they are stuck together.

Even a cursory glance at the literature is a bit scary. The problem is that MOST things that kids swallow are pretty harmless and therefore not brought to anyone's attention. We don't know the numbers of kids that swallow magnets yet have no problems - they certainly exist - so the reporting bias is going to be fairly high.

But I personally would keep kids away from these things. They just don't need to play with them just yet.

Happily, you're not the one making policy decisions on this.

Ebola comes to mind.

Go back to your corner.

Speaking of corners, Elboa sits in one. It's not a very good bioweapon. Really virulent viruses tend to be crappy weapons. Once you kill your vector, you're pretty much dead yourself unless you simultaneously invoke the deux ex machina of a Zombie Apocalypse.

Now that would be a good bioweapon. Even the CDC agrees with that.

The deaths from Fukushima happened before the fuel even showed up at the plant.

Comparing infant mortality rates across countries is not exactly an apples-to-apples comparison. France does not count infant mortality rates the way the US does, the way WHO recommends. The US considers any child with signs of life from the moment of birth to be alive, even if it required resuscitation, and if they die they are counted. France does not count children who die with in the first 24 hours or who are under a certain weight at birth.

The US though reports some of the of the highest percentages of pre-term births (something like 1-8), basically those born at less than 37 weeks, but we have the best survival rate among pre-term birth babies, better than all but 2 European nations:

Infant Mortality Deceptive Stat

The fact is that for decades, the U.S. has shown superior infant-mortality rates using official National Center for Health Statistics and European Perinatal Health Report data — in fact, the best in the world outside of Sweden and Norway, even without correcting for any of the population and risk-factor differences deleterious to the U.S. — for premature and low-birth-weight babies, the newborns who actually need medical care and who are at highest risk of dying.

Where we appear to fall behind, though, is mortality after 37 weeks, basically full term.

CDC Report

The infant mortality rate for infants born at 24-27 weeks of gestation was lower in the United States than in most European countries (except Norway and Sweden) seven countries had higher rates. For infants born at 28-31 weeks of gestation, the U.S. rate was lower than for all countries shown except Austria, Denmark, and Sweden. For infants born at 32-36 weeks of gestation, the U.S. infant mortality rate was lower than for all countries shown except Austria and Norway. However, for infants born at 37 weeks of gestation or more, the United States’ infant mortality rate was highest among the countries studied.

So the US healthcare system apparently does much better with premature babies, those that generally need the healthcare, than most European nations, but for those born at normal gestation we drop off. The question that isn't answered that I can find is why? Are these children's deaths because of healthcare or other issues.

Why not concern yourself with something relevant, like the leading causes of death in your nation? http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/deaths.htm

That was the rand co. argument regarding smoking, that it was a huge net benefit to society because of where the deaths tended to fall.

The government however has quite aggressively attacked smoking since the 1960s and particularly since the 1980s lower the rate in society.

http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/tables/trends/cig_smoking/images/trends_2011b.jpg

Not really, the CDC keeps specimens on hand for that very reason. Yes, a bunch of people would probably die, but between quarantine technology and the fact that we have an effective vaccination that just needs to be produced would render it a terrible tragedy, but one that the species will survive.

The Andrew Speaker case in 2007 was fairly high profile, and was technically a voluntary isolation, rather than an actual quarantine. It was the first isolation order from the CDC in over 40 years, and we typically don't quarantine even nominally fatal infectious diseases like HIV, as long as they aren't virulent.

There are 20 national quarantine centers in the US, generally associated with ports of entry and international airports, Currently, the only things we quarantine people at those centers for, as of 2012, are active cases of Cholera, Diptheria, Infectious tuberculosis, Bubonic plague, Smallpox, Yellow fever, viral hemorrhagic fevers, SARS, and pandemic flu. This was by presidential order in 2012, and took an executive order from the president, and even so, they typically end up in the hospital rather than at a quarantine facility, if the disease is treatable, which most of those are. The last big quarantine order was for the Spanish Flu Pandemic in 1918-1919. The last small quarantine order were for the postal Anthrax scares, and involve voluntary isolation, rather than enforced isolation (unsurprisingly, the people exposed wanted treatment). Prior to that, it was the Reston Virginia primate research facility in 1996, when there was an outbreak of Ebola-Reston among the primates there, and while some humans tested positive, they were asymptomatic.

See also: http://www.cdc.gov/quarantine/aboutlawsregulationsquarantineisolation.html

You didn't read the whole article.

Late last year in Queensland, an 18 month old child died after ingesting 12 small magnets.

And that's not the only case by a long shot.

http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/3-year-old-girl-dies-swallowing-37-buckyball-magnets-article-1.1032839

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5548a3.htm

Kitchen knives and chemicals have other legitimate uses. These magnets are toys with no functional value. Nothing of value is lost by banning them.

Tell you what - you provide a) a definition of "younger" and "older"; and b) credible sources that back up your claims that "younger drivers drive way more than older drivers," and then we'll talk.

Until then, the US Federal Highway Administration and the Dept of Transportation would seem to me to be quite legitimate sources, and their numbers show that "younger drivers" do not drive more than "older drivers" for any non-ludicrous definition of "younger" and "older."

More expensive cars are quite safer than cheaper cars. Both cars meeting the same basic criteria doesn't mean that one isn't safer than the other.

Okay, I know a lot of 18 year olds driving brand new toyotas and hondas on their parents' dime. And I also know a lot of 35 year olds driving beat up, 20 year old Chevys. There's very little correlation between "age" and "cost of car." It's also not that hard to get an affordable, inexpensive car. The fact that some cheap cars are less safe than some expensive cars means nothing, unless you can show that younger drivers are overwhelmingly the drivers of these unsafe vehicles.

Plenty of statistics show that younger drivers are involved in fatal crashes at a disproportionate rate. Provide some statistics to back up your assertions that this is incorrect, or kindly stop asking us to take your baseless assertions as remotely valid.

Ok, in 2010, there were 30,814 firearm related deaths, of those, 19,392 are considered suicide. If someone wants to play around with the numbers, here is the link, provided by the Centers for Disease Control.

Your figures don't match up with the figures I got from that link (31,672 firearms deaths), which contradict other figures offered by the CDC, including their own "top ten causes of death" list.

Kinda shitty statistic system, considering they can't even keep them straight internally...

According to FBI statistics, there were 12,664 homicides in 2011 (a steady decrease over the past several years), 8,583 of which were "firearms related..." interesting side note, there were 1,587 murders with "firearms, type not stated;" more than rifles, shotguns, and "other" guns combined...

WTF? If it's not a pistol, shotgun, rifle, or 'other' type of gun... are people going around killing each other with cannons?

Since the main part of the current gun debate is regarding rifles, I feel it's important to point out that knives [1,694 murders], blunt instruments [496], and body parts (i.e., hands, feet, foreheads) [728], murdered more people in 2011 than rifles [323] did.

BTW, yes, you read that right - more people used their fists and feet to murder, than clubs and bats. Crazy, I know.

Ok, in 2010, there were 30,814 firearm related deaths, of those, 19,392 are considered suicide. If someone wants to play around with the numbers, here is the link, provided by the Centers for Disease Control.

Your figures don't match up with the figures I got from that link (31,672 firearms deaths), which contradict other figures offered by the CDC, including their own "top ten causes of death" list.

Kinda shitty statistic system, considering they can't even keep them straight internally...

According to FBI statistics, there were 12,664 homicides in 2011 (a steady decrease over the past several years), 8,583 of which were "firearms related..." interesting side note, there were 1,587 murders with "firearms, type not stated;" more than rifles, shotguns, and "other" guns combined...

WTF? If it's not a pistol, shotgun, rifle, or 'other' type of gun... are people going around killing each other with cannons?

Since the main part of the current gun debate is regarding rifles, I feel it's important to point out that knives [1,694 murders], blunt instruments [496], and body parts (i.e., hands, feet, foreheads) [728], murdered more people in 2011 than rifles [323] did.

BTW, yes, you read that right - more people used their fists and feet to murder, than clubs and bats. Crazy, I know.

Ok, in 2010, there were 30,814 firearm related deaths, of those, 19,392 are considered suicide. If someone wants to play around with the numbers, here is the link, provided by the Centers for Disease Control.

Your figures don't match up with the figures I got from that link (31,672 firearms deaths), which contradict other figures offered by the CDC, including their own "top ten causes of death" list.

Kinda shitty statistic system, considering they can't even keep them straight internally...

According to FBI statistics, there were 12,664 homicides in 2011 (a steady decrease over the past several years), 8,583 of which were "firearms related..." interesting side note, there were 1,587 murders with "firearms, type not stated;" more than rifles, shotguns, and "other" guns combined...

WTF? If it's not a pistol, shotgun, rifle, or 'other' type of gun... are people going around killing each other with cannons?

Since the main part of the current gun debate is regarding rifles, I feel it's important to point out that knives [1,694 murders], blunt instruments [496], and body parts (i.e., hands, feet, foreheads) [728], murdered more people in 2011 than rifles [323] did.

BTW, yes, you read that right - more people used their fists and feet to murder, than clubs and bats. Crazy, I know.

Ok, in 2010, there were 30,814 firearm related deaths, of those, 19,392 are considered suicide. If someone wants to play around with the numbers, here is the link, provided by the Centers for Disease Control.

Antibiotics are properly used for prevention all the time. There's a tradeoff of damage a new infection can cause if it takes hold or gets worse while treating something else, and lung infections are a fine example: http://www.cdc.gov/hantavirus/technical/hps/treatment.html

Antibiotics are used improperly for prevention all the time, but that doesn't mean it's wrong to use them in all cases. If doctors waited for a diagnosis of infection on someone with hantavirus, that person would have a higher chance of simply dying.

You sure on the numbers of women raping men? Even major reports redefine rape to exclude "being made to penetrate". Since the report doesn't include offender data, it's impossible to say how many of those rapes were committed by women, but it's likely that sort of poor definition is used elsewhere. Women are still far more likely to be victimized, but it's just plain wrong to say it women don't rape men in measurable numbers.

It's worth noting that Asian americans have a higher life expectancy than residents of japan. I can't find a breakdown for life expectancy by ethnicity for Japan. Since race is strongly correlated with life expectancy, the mere fact of a more diverse population brings US numbers down, even if we handle every racial group better. Life expectancy is a poor measure to star with, since it's not closely tied to medical care in particular. Social factors are a major cause of premature deaths. Life expectancy at later ages may be more relevant, as medical conditions start taking over causes of death instead of accidents and violence.

The definition of live birth as actually calculated differs from country to country and this has a large impact on numbers. As a way of avoiding those differences in counting live births, I suggest perinatal mortality instead. And, go figure, the US is better than some of the countries that regular infant mortality would suggest would surpass it. The UK (25th) for instance goes from being 2 better than us to 1 worse on rates. It's funny, but the numbers on that wiki link do not correspond to sorty by any of the actual infant mortality numbers. I believe perinatal has it's own landmines, but the time frame immediately surrounding birth is more connected to medical system than from birth to 1.

http://blogs.cdc.gov/publichealthmatters/2011/05/preparedness-101-zombie-apocalypse//. Right, that was worth time and money.

... the drop in violent crime over the years seems to coincide with the legalization of abortions.

Furthermore, a number of states legalized abortion prior to the 1973 Roe-vs-Wade decision that legalized it throughout the USA, and their crime rates began to drop earlier than the states that legalized it later.

But the lead theory has some strong evidence as well, and is probably a contributing factor. The CDC has found a strong correlation between blood lead levels and poverty, and between lead and low IQ. Low IQ is very strongly correlated with being convicted of a crime, especially violent crime.