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Mod as troll, flamebait, or whatever... it is true, and you know it.

Current technology would allow a bunch of fat ( http://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/AdultObesity/LatestFindings.html ) Americans to stop driving SUVs. A VW lupo engined car gets 78Mpg (no hybrid BS, just a reasonable sized engine in a reasonable sized car [5 occupants]) http://www.usatoday.com/money/consumer/autos/mareview/mauto497.htm. With giant SUVs with their single (as big as a house) occupant getting what, 10Mpg?!

It would also allow a bunch of fat Americans to stop turning every light on in their houses.

It would allow fat Americans to insulate their homes, and stop running their air conditioners non-stop in the summer, and heaters non-stop in the winter.

It would also allow folks to use efficient lighting if a bunch of fat American Republicans would stop trying to "protect the right" of fat Americans to waste energy on incandescent light bulbs.

It would also allow the US military to stop wasting more petroleum than any other entity in the world. Wasted by fat wasteful, mostly white (those in charge, not the cannon fodder), Americans to kill poor, non-wasteful, thin, mostly brown "others" all around the globe in a quest for global dominance of all remaining petroleum reserves.

"The DoD uses 360,000 barrels of oil each day. This amount makes the DoD the single largest oil consumer in the world. There are only 35 countries in the world consuming more oil than DoD."

http://www.dailyenergyreport.com/2011/01/how-much-energy-does-the-u-s-military-consume/

Really, if fat wasteful Americans would just conserve (no real sacrifice needed, since the majority of U.S. "use" is really waste), we (the world) would be in much better shape.

SARS went from zero to 900 deaths very quickly.

In an eight month period 900 people died of SARS. In an average year during the same period 167,000 to 333, 000 die from the common seasonal flue.

900 deaths were the beginning tail of the curve. We didn't have an epidemic because of an aggressive international effort led by WHO to stop it, by isolating patients. That effort led to the deaths of many doctors and nurses, of whom Carlo Urbani was only the most prominent. It's impossible to prove that the outbreak would have spread with an exponential increase, but the judgment of the doctors who were managing it was that it was highly likely, and they believed it strongly enough that they were willing to risk and give their lives to stop it. There was a good chance of a worldwide outbreak of a viral disease with 10% mortality, and they stopped it.

This is an example of how using technical terms such as pandemic can blow things out of proportion. TB is not a new disease and neither is resistant TB. In the US the incidence of resistant TB is declining. In the last year reported there were 103 cases of resistant TB in the US. And no "outbreaks" of resistant TB.

The problem with Florida is that the Republican governor and legislature just closed down the very hospital they need to treat TB at a time when XDR is emerging as a real threat.

Prove this statement. How does closing down a 50 bed hospital have a major impact on an outbreak.

I don't know what burden of evidence you would demand to prove it, but WHO says that one part of the strategy is, "strengthening health care systems and primary care services". Florida's policies of cutting health care budgets and privatizing services are doing the opposite. The underlying problem is that health care in the U.S. is driven by politics, not rational policies, and while the Democrats are pretty bad, the Republicans are the worst offenders.

You also need to justify the statement that "XDR is emerging as a real threat" when the actual numbers say something completely different. Show me how it is an emerging threat in North America.

According to my reading of NEJM and Science, XDR is appearing in many parts of the world in which TB is treated inadequately, such as Russia, and when it appears, it often can't be treated at all, the TB progresses and the patient often dies.

As the NEJM says, the only way to deal with MDR and XDR strains is prevention.

I think you have very much oversimplified NEJM's position of XDR-TB. Here is an actual quote from a NEJM article;

All evidence suggests that XDR tuberculosis reflects a failure to implement the measures recommended in the WHO's Stop TB Strategy.5 This strategy emphasizes expanding high-quality DOTS programs, addressing HIV-associated tuberculosis and drug resistance, strengthening health care systems and primary care services, encouraging all providers to follow good practices, empowering patients and communities to improve health, and enabling and promoting research.

Prevention is only one part of the above strategy.

The relevant part is:

strengthening health care systems and primary care services

The Republican policies are weakening health care systems and primary care services, particularly among the TB-vulnerable populations.

Many of them have latent disease, which means they feel OK but are transmitting TB

Here is an example where your information is completely incorrect. Here is a quote from the CDC fact sheet'

Persons with latent TB infection are not infe

SARS went from zero to 900 deaths very quickly.

In an eight month period 900 people died of SARS. In an average year during the same period 167,000 to 333, 000 die from the common seasonal flue. This is an example of how using technical terms such as pandemic can blow things out of proportion. TB is not a new disease and neither is resistant TB. In the US the incidence of resistant TB is declining. In the last year reported there were 103 cases of resistant TB in the US. And no "outbreaks" of resistant TB.

The problem with Florida is that the Republican governor and legislature just closed down the very hospital they need to treat TB at a time when XDR is emerging as a real threat.

Prove this statement. How does closing down a 50 bed hospital have a major impact on an outbreak. You also need to justify the statement that "XDR is emerging as a real threat" when the actual numbers say something completely different. Show me how it is an emerging threat in North America.

As the NEJM says, the only way to deal with MDR and XDR strains is prevention.

I think you have very much oversimplified NEJM's position of XDR-TB. Here is an actual quote from a NEJM article;

All evidence suggests that XDR tuberculosis reflects a failure to implement the measures recommended in the WHO's Stop TB Strategy.5 This strategy emphasizes expanding high-quality DOTS programs, addressing HIV-associated tuberculosis and drug resistance, strengthening health care systems and primary care services, encouraging all providers to follow good practices, empowering patients and communities to improve health, and enabling and promoting research.

Prevention is only one part of the above strategy.

Many of them have latent disease, which means they feel OK but are transmitting TB

Here is an example where your information is completely incorrect. Here is a quote from the CDC fact sheet'

Persons with latent TB infection are not infectious and cannot spread TB infection to others.

Please get your fact straight.

Science magazine had even more pessimistic articles about XDR.

Care to cite any of these "science magazines"?

They sent a reporter to the former USSR, where they have no functioning health system

I believe there is a "functioning health care system" in North America so any comparison with the former USSR are invalid.

According to TFA, they're putting up TB patients in motels!

TB has a contagious stage and an non-contagious stage. The thing is that many people do not take their medication during the non-contagious stage and need to be watched. Putting up non-contagious patients who need to complete the second part of their treatment in hotels so proper medication can be ensured is not a bad thing. Many are homeless and all they need to have done is be fed and given medications at regular intervals. One does not need a hospital bed to do that. In cases of people with homes this would be done in their homes. I would much rather see a $50/day hotel used than a $3000/day hospital bed that could be used by an acute patient.

The numbers are not important. What's important is the emergence of multi-drug resistant (MDR) and extremely-drug resistant (XDR) strains. MDR strains are difficult to treat. Some doctors say that XDR strains can be treated with great difficulty and expense, but I've read of cases of XDR that doctors couldn't treat at all.

So fear mongering about a crisis that may never happen and is not happening now is more important that real facts and figures. This just plays into the hands of drug companies who w

Combined vaccines really aren't that novel, actually. Catastrophic side-effects from combining them, on the other hand... well, in human medicine that kind of thing would be rigorously tested in a laboratory first. The use of antibiotics and vaccines in factory farming isn't exactly a health-conscious mindset.

Years ago I would have agreed with your comment. However, the word Vaccine is being used in a context that wasn't apart of your High School Biology or maybe even College. Try this from the CDC. See the word Vaccine being used in relation with a Bacteria so the word Vaccine has Evolved beyond just a preventative measure for a Virus, and now means a Preventative Measure for a Disease. They weren't using that Vaccine in that fashion ether since it's not used in the US unless you're going into a diseased area like Florida. Now for that uncomfortable day when the CDC and "others" show up. This will be an uncomfortable day.

you can go to the CDC website and see for yourself.

Indeed, here's a summary from the CDC from the end of last year. The most relevant part to your point:

While CDC estimates that only 4 percent of men in the United States are MSM, the rate of new HIV diagnoses among
MSM in the United States is more than 44 times that of other men (range: 522 – 989 per 100,000 MSM vs. 12 per
100,000 other men).

I have that link somewhat handy since I'm a gay male. For any other gay guys, to protect yourself...
1. Be monogamous; if you can't,
2. Skip anal and go for oral, which has a much smaller HIV transmission risk to both partners (basically 0 to the guy who's getting head); it's safest not to get cum in your mouth; if you can't,
3. Always use a condom and top--bottoming has a far higher transmission risk; if you can't,
4. Never fucking bareback with a guy you're not absolutely certain is HIV negative no matter what you asshole. You make us all look bad. If you can't,
5. Test yourself often (1-3 months). When you become positive, only have sex with other positive guys. There is no more "if you can't".

It should be noted that condom usage is highly effective but also imperfect. Depending on the study, they reduce exposure risk by only around 80%. For more precise transmission statistics, the Transmission section of the HIV/AIDS Wikipedia article has a good summary and good sources (though you usually need journal access to read them). The Prevention section is also worth reading.

CDC figures still indicate that half of all new HIV infections are in men having sex with men (gay or bi). From what I can tell, the factors that you mention are actually still in effect and did not end in the 70s and 80s. While there is more knowledge of risk factors, that appears to be offset by the complacency of younger gay or bi men to the risks, as AIDS is no longer front page news, nor necessarily a death sentence.

2009 CDC Fact Sheet
http://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/Newsroom/docs/FastFacts-MSM-FINAL508COMP.pdf

From the summary:

* MSM account for nearly half of the approximately 1.2 million people living with HIV in the United States (49%, or an estimated 580,000 total persons).
* MSM account for more than half of all new HIV infections in the United States each year (61%, or an estimated 29,300 infections).
* While CDC estimates that only 4 percent of men in the United States are MSM, the rate of new HIV diagnoses among MSM in the United States is more than 44 times that of other men (range: 522 – 989 per 100,000 MSM vs. 12 per 100,000 other men).

This isn't about safety, its about the perception of safety.

This is about safety.

Drunk driving kills approximately 40 times as many people as terrorism

I have to stop listening to you after that remark. The center of disease control and prevention keeps statistics on deaths per year classified by categories. In both 2009 and 2010 they added (due to regulation) the new terrorisim categories. There has yet to be a death associated with terrorisim, so 40 times zero is just still zero. You're pulling statistics out of your ass.

The total number of deaths (estimated, final counts take a few years) in 2010 was 2.5 million. That said, alcohol induced deaths top off just over 25 thousand (or about 1%), but that includes all alcohol induced deaths (liver failure, etc.) Motor vechicle deaths seem to be down as a whole in 2010, at just over 37 thousand (about (1.5%).

All disease of the heart combine to about 595 thousand (about 22%). Tumors took another 573 thousand (another 20%). If you really want to live longer, stop trying to stop the unlikely but horrible events from killing you and start working on the likely but seemingly innocuous events from killing you. Put down the hamburgers, stop eating the fries, and get serious about combating pollution. You are going to get (statstically speaking) a 40,000% return on your efforts compared to stoping a cause that amounts to less than one percentage of deaths.

Don't believe me? Read the reports yourself.

By "smart people tend to be gay", I meant (and made clear two sentences later) that smart people tend to be gay more often than people in general tend to be gay, not something ridiculous like a majority of smart people are gay.

Your reasoning is quite poor in several places, which makes me disinclined to believe you over the published study I linked. Specifically...
  * Your anecdotal evidence disagrees with the paper, so the paper that studied tens of thousands of people in two countries must be wrong.
  * You say gay people "aren't 'special' in any way" yet your anecdotal evidence supports the opposite conclusion--that gay people are less likely that you would expect to be "very intelligent", considering you know none when you'd expect to know 1-2.
  * You seem to believe in the utter equality of straight and gay people. This is of course inconsistent with you being "allergic to bias"--let the data speak for itself.
  * Gay is popular recently, which should motivate gay people to make spurious "gay people are smart people" research. Wouldn't a lack of popularity motivate that, and a surplus of popularity make it unnecessary?
  * Gay researchers/scientists are extremely susceptible to bias when studying gay issues. Change "gay" to "female" to see how silly this is; it would be preposterous to make female judges recuse themselves on abortion cases, for instance. The paper I cited discusses motivations briefly (I have no real idea if the researcher is gay; I suspect not):

However, I emphasize that my
findings have absolutely no practical importance. It is not like we can now use someone’s
intelligence to assess their homosexuality accurately. My approach to science is
decidedly basic, not applied (clinical or medical). I am entirely driven by the desire to
discover knowledge, not by its potential applications or implications

There is another paper (cited by this one; I can dig out the citation if you want...) where in the general population gay men's verbal scores beat straight men's, though lesbian's scores were lower than straight women's. What kind of crazy bias causes that?

  * I personally am incapable of avoiding bias here since I "cherish" the idea that highly intelligent people are gay more often than people in general. I admit I find this idea appealing, but the truth is the truth. I don't shy away from nasty statistics, like this one: 19% of American men who have sex with men have HIV/AIDS. I don't claim to understand *why* the intelligence correlation exists, just that it does. I also made no judgement on whether the effect was good or bad; I just said that "science is gay" in this specific sense.

I also wanted to mention that I very much question your anecdotal evidence. If you know 20-30 "very intelligent" guys, you would presumably know well over 100 people, and you would expect something like 5 gay people in such a sample if it's at all representative, yet you "don't know any gay people". It's pretty easy to pass as straight, especially in a workplace context where it simply doesn't have to come up.

There are usually several cases of Bubonic Plague in the US every year.

It is treatable with antibiotics.

2009 Suicide rates
Number of deaths: 36,909
Firearm suicides:: 18,735
Suffocation suicides: 9,000
Poisoning suicides: 6,398
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/suicide.htm

Rates by country are very interesting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate

: Males (%) Females (%)
Firearms 56 30
Suffocation 24 21
Poisoning 13 40
I'm not sure if they include car exhaust on suffocation or poisoning.
As a guess, I bet most "poisoning" is prescription drugs.
Once again, women are less messy than men.

" tens of thousands of lives are saved by guns every year."
that's quite a jump. The study shows nothing of the sort.
The criminals weren't there to kill anyone.
Please don't conflate someone stealing your TV with someone who will kill you to take your TV.

Can you site the study? because I can't find any study at the CDC to backs what you claims it says.

So I suspect you got an incorrect piece of information from some source(echo chamber) and haven't actual read any such study your self.

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5214a2.htm

Tell me how well that works out for you when you have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for cancer treatment out of pocket.

We have insurance to spread the risk, not to encourage people to take stupid risks and make intentionally bad choices.

This misconception, that insurance (whether private or public) will save us all by spreading out the risk, is really the problem. Cancer is not some rare statistical outlier whose cost can be significantly reduced per capita by spreading it out among the entire population. It's the second leading cause of death in the U.S. By the CDC's figures, 23% of the deaths in any given year are due to cancer. If a cancer treatment regiment costs a total of "hundreds of thousands of dollars" per patient, then spreading the risk with insurance only lowers the cost per capita to tens of thousands of dollars.

The American Cancer Society estimates we spend $103.8 billion annually on cancer treatment. Over a population of 310 million, that's $335/yr per capita. Over a 79 year lifetime expectancy, that's $26.5k each person has to pay even with the risk being spread. And this is for one disease! The per capita lifetime premium for all other illnesses like heart disease have to be added on top of that.

Insurance isn't the answer. We have to accept that we're all going to die. Rather than spend "hundreds of thousands of dollars" fighting what in most cases is the inevitable end, lower our expectations. Spend a few thousand or tens of thousand on treatment. If it works, great. If it doesn't, oh well. Your time was up. If you want to blow hundreds of thousands of dollars of your own money to try to eek out an extra 2-3 years of life (the 5-year and 10-year survival rates for cancer are not very good), that's your prerogative. But spending that much should not be the norm, nor the national or insurance standard.

The reason why healthcare rates are skyrocketing is not because of additional use by policy holders, but because of skyrocketing costs at hospitals and other covered facilities that have to make up for their losses on indigent and poor that use their facilities as primary care.

ER as primary care is far from the only factor going into rates increasing; it's surely not even the most important one. It's only in the second tier of the first list I found. By far the biggest factor is easy to see in any graphs of age distribution. Young people cost less to take care of; as our population shifts toward being older on average, costs go up. That combines badly with one of the other major issues here, that there are a whole lot more expensive drugs available now that are targeted at older patients, both from a functional and marketing perspective.

"The statistics I've seen show guns prevent crime & murders, because the thief runs-away."
No. You do NOT get to have this discussion without citations. The topic too hot for you to talk about something you have seen somewhere, maybe.
I can't find any study that supports that position. I could have missed it, that is certainly true. But I did look. I'm a freak in that I want good data and the argument to be based on good data. Every piece of 'evidences' from hard core gun advocates I have shot down with simple CDC and FBI data.

Every 3 days a child dies from an unintentional shooting. What about their rights?

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr54/nvsr54_10.pdf

" or smoke cigarettes (because it's our body),"
and everyone else who breaths it.

Wrong.

The numbers come from w32-w34 statistics which don't include suicide.
There is very specific and clearly spelled out metrics.

Example:
Firearm deaths:
                                                                                99 00 01 02
Unintentional (W32–W34) 824 776 802 762
Suicide . . . . (X72–X74) 16,599 16,586 16,869 17,108

Clearly the are broken out.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr54/nvsr54_10.pdf

When I saw w23-w34 and you DON"T know what I am talking about, then you aren't qualified to have an opinion with any real weight behind it.

Also:
According to the CDC, a child dies every 3 days from an unintentional gun shot.

It isn't like 8 of 10 people standing on the sidewalk are giant tubs of lard. You notice fat people because they aren't the norm and are not nearly as common as people think. If they were, you wouldn't call them "fat", you'd call them "normal".

Actually over 5 of 10 are obese according to the CDC (35.7% adults 17% kids). http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/facts.html So over half and yeah they are as common as people think, and that doesn't even count those that are simply overweight (and not obese) which is over 34% http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/overwt.htm. Added together, no matter what street corner you go to you will be surrounded by overweight and obese people which indeed *ARE* the norm. But I do agree with your other points.

It isn't like 8 of 10 people standing on the sidewalk are giant tubs of lard. You notice fat people because they aren't the norm and are not nearly as common as people think. If they were, you wouldn't call them "fat", you'd call them "normal".

Actually over 5 of 10 are obese according to the CDC (35.7% adults 17% kids). http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/data/facts.html So over half and yeah they are as common as people think, and that doesn't even count those that are simply overweight (and not obese) which is over 34% http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/overwt.htm. Added together, no matter what street corner you go to you will be surrounded by overweight and obese people which indeed *ARE* the norm. But I do agree with your other points.

Ok, here goes. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health issues various guidelines for exposure to chemicals. For carbon dioxide in air, the recommended exposure limit is 9 kilograms per cubic meter. For mercury vapor, it is is 0.5 milligrams per cubic meter. That's six orders of difference in the threshold of toxicity.

Ok, here goes. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health issues various guidelines for exposure to chemicals. For carbon dioxide in air, the recommended exposure limit is 9 kilograms per cubic meter. For mercury vapor, it is is 0.5 milligrams per cubic meter. That's six orders of difference in the threshold of toxicity.

Studies show that modern teens are having less sex and starting later

I'm flabberghasted! You're right! I assumed the opposite based pop culture (I know I know...) but sure as day, here it is:

http://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/sexualbehaviors/data.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/TeenPregnancy/AboutTeenPreg.htm

Studies show that modern teens are having less sex and starting later

I'm flabberghasted! You're right! I assumed the opposite based pop culture (I know I know...) but sure as day, here it is:

http://www.cdc.gov/healthyyouth/sexualbehaviors/data.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/TeenPregnancy/AboutTeenPreg.htm

Just as everywhere else in the developed world. (Although actual figures in US states vary between 35% and 53% of people getting cancer - no evacuations so far, despite hugely increased risk in some states.)

You know this? Pray tell, how have you come to this conclusion when any rational person would at least desire some evidene? Were there burning bushes involved or did you simple determine it because nuclear power is, after all, made of rainbows and the laughter of children.

From Table 10 in this report available from the CDC here:

Number of deaths due to cancer ("malignant neoplasms") in the USA in 2009: 567,628
Total number of deaths in the USA in 2009: 2,437,163

Thus in the USA in 2009 cancer caused 23.3% of all deaths. Now, take into account that a lot of people get cancer but don't die of it, and you will realize that the granparent's numbers are not unreasonable.

Just as everywhere else in the developed world. (Although actual figures in US states vary between 35% and 53% of people getting cancer - no evacuations so far, despite hugely increased risk in some states.)

You know this? Pray tell, how have you come to this conclusion when any rational person would at least desire some evidene? Were there burning bushes involved or did you simple determine it because nuclear power is, after all, made of rainbows and the laughter of children.

From Table 10 in this report available from the CDC here:

Number of deaths due to cancer ("malignant neoplasms") in the USA in 2009: 567,628
Total number of deaths in the USA in 2009: 2,437,163

Thus in the USA in 2009 cancer caused 23.3% of all deaths. Now, take into account that a lot of people get cancer but don't die of it, and you will realize that the granparent's numbers are not unreasonable.

Carbohydrates are not and will never be a "toxin" to humans. It is the primary fuel for muscle activity. They are necessary for biological life as we know it. Toxins, my hat.

Actually, carbohydrates are chronic toxins. And thanks to the miracle of gluconeogensis, carbohydrates are completely unnecessary for human life. Our body will *make* glucose out of both protein and fat to supply a stable amount of blood sugar. Various people can tolerate various levels of this chronic toxin, but at the end of the day, there is simply no such thing as an essential carbohydrate.

3/4 of the population can't handle bread or similar carbs?

Yeah, there are apparently 4 quartiles of insulin resistance, with 25% that can pretty much tolerate any amount of toxic carbohydrates, and 25% that is incredibly hurt by carbohydrates, and two other quartiles that are somewhat hurt by carbohydrates. You'll notice this as the obesity rate plateaus to a maximum.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/overwt.htm

"Percent of adults age 20 years and over who are obese: 33.9% (2007-2008)
Percent of adults age 20 years and over who are overweight (and not obese): 34.4% (2007-2008)"

So, close to 70% by the latest statistics from the CDC, but you can slice it a number of ways.

HIV infection is, by far, the most deadly STD, and considerably more scientific evidence exists regarding condom effectiveness for prevention of HIV infection than for other STDs. The body of research on the effectiveness of latex condoms in preventing sexual transmission of HIV is both comprehensive and conclusive. The ability of latex condoms to prevent transmission of HIV has been scientifically established in "real-life" studies of sexually active couples as well as in laboratory studies.

... and of course it also reduces the incidence of other STDs.

We need to do things like giving people both the self-assurance and the almost automatic reflex to say "cut the crap" when a guy says he doesn't want to use a condom because "it will get between us" or "it takes the spontaneity out of it" or "it's like wearing a raincoat" or "if you loved me you'd let me". (in other words, a working "b.s. detector"). And not just in high schools and colleges - this should start in grade school.

It's the parents who don't want their "little precious" to be exposed to "such smut" who end up with kids raising kids, so the fools who preach abstinence need to be exposed for what they are.

A society that won't encourage their kids to attend sex ed classes to get the information they need that could save their life but lets them watch gruesome simulated murders and rapes in high-def as a part of their daily ration of entertainment is messed up.

Sugar is a major problem, but we need to be more intelligent than the conventional wisdom that attribute the Obesity epidemic to just one factor. It isn't just sugar. It isn't just lack of exercise. It's about a dozen different factors and when people exclusively focus on one thing, what they are really doing is consciously deciding to ignore everything else. If you decide sugar is the problem but fat isn't, then you're excusing yourself to eat as much fried chicken ad potato chips as possible. People need to step back and see the big picture.

The problem is sugar, fat, alcohol, processed foods, lack of exercise, convenience foods, lack of fruits and vegetables, sedentary activity, eating in front of the television, reliance on the automobile, the expense of healthy foods, people's ignorance on how to cook a balanced meal, the dearth of household meals, the accompanying physiological acclimatization to a high calorie lifestyle, depression, etc. There's dozens of factors.

If you were to name a single problem it is the fact that you can not live a "mainstream" lifestyle in the United States and still have a healthy lifestyle. Less than one-third of Americans have a healthy weight. So if you want to be healthy you need to exist on the fringe of American society, which takes a lot of effort that most people don't want give.

Last I checked, 1/3rd of the amount of deaths on 9/11 (1) are attributed to cigarettes in the U.S. daily (3). If you consider war casualties to be a side effect of a war instead of a terrorist attack it really is quite easy to have something kill more people than terrorists in the U.S. DUI related deaths killed more than 3 9/11s in 2009 (2). U.S. citizens attempt to harm themselves at rates of 334 9/11s in 2008 and 12 9/11s worth succeeded.

In the grand scheme of things, very few Americans have died to terrorists. Considering we wasted nearly a decade of war in two countries going after a man that was no where near that theater has me wondering what we could have done in fighting cigarette, alcohol and suicide deaths instead.

1) Using the figure 2,996 for deaths per the parent comment's questions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11
2) http://www.cdc.gov/MotorVehicleSafety/Impaired_Driving/impaired-drv_factsheet.html
3) http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast_facts/
4) http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/suicide/suicidal_thoughts.html

Last I checked, 1/3rd of the amount of deaths on 9/11 (1) are attributed to cigarettes in the U.S. daily (3). If you consider war casualties to be a side effect of a war instead of a terrorist attack it really is quite easy to have something kill more people than terrorists in the U.S. DUI related deaths killed more than 3 9/11s in 2009 (2). U.S. citizens attempt to harm themselves at rates of 334 9/11s in 2008 and 12 9/11s worth succeeded.

In the grand scheme of things, very few Americans have died to terrorists. Considering we wasted nearly a decade of war in two countries going after a man that was no where near that theater has me wondering what we could have done in fighting cigarette, alcohol and suicide deaths instead.

1) Using the figure 2,996 for deaths per the parent comment's questions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11
2) http://www.cdc.gov/MotorVehicleSafety/Impaired_Driving/impaired-drv_factsheet.html
3) http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast_facts/
4) http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/suicide/suicidal_thoughts.html

Last I checked, 1/3rd of the amount of deaths on 9/11 (1) are attributed to cigarettes in the U.S. daily (3). If you consider war casualties to be a side effect of a war instead of a terrorist attack it really is quite easy to have something kill more people than terrorists in the U.S. DUI related deaths killed more than 3 9/11s in 2009 (2). U.S. citizens attempt to harm themselves at rates of 334 9/11s in 2008 and 12 9/11s worth succeeded.

In the grand scheme of things, very few Americans have died to terrorists. Considering we wasted nearly a decade of war in two countries going after a man that was no where near that theater has me wondering what we could have done in fighting cigarette, alcohol and suicide deaths instead.

1) Using the figure 2,996 for deaths per the parent comment's questions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9/11
2) http://www.cdc.gov/MotorVehicleSafety/Impaired_Driving/impaired-drv_factsheet.html
3) http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast_facts/
4) http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/suicide/suicidal_thoughts.html

How do people get monkeypox?
Monkeypox can spread to humans from an infected animal through an animal bite or direct contact with the animal’s lesions or body fluids. The disease also can be spread from person to person, although it is much less infectious than smallpox. The virus is thought to be transmitted by respiratory droplets during direct and prolonged face-to-face contact. In addition, it is possible monkeypox can be spread by direct contact with body fluids of an infected person or with virus-contaminated objects, such as bedding or clothing.

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/monkeypox/qa.htm

Learn before you post.

HIV is not as contagious as monkeypox, nor does it normally kill as fast. And it is unlikely that stereotypical virgin slashdotters will get AIDs.

Nor does it seem to be super deadly-- between 1-10% fatality rate even in Africa.

5% would be a pretty high fatality rate for an infectious disease. Not as high as the 1918 flu, but high enough to worry about. Even 1% is nothing to take lightly. And do read on - not all monkeypox is the same.

Might be a good idea if you do not rely solely on wikipedia for your information.
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/monkeypox/treatmentguidelines.htm
www.state.nj.us/agriculture/divisions/ah/diseases/monkeypox.html
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/sep/26/opinion/la-oe-orent-pox-20100926

There are two distinct genetic lines of monkeypox. The less severe West African strain entered the United States in 2003 in the body of an infected Gambian pouched rat. It spread in a pet store to dormice and to caged prairie dogs, and eventually caused 81 human infections, none of them serious and none of which spread. The far deadlier Congo basin strain causes a disease that is "virtually indistinguishable" from typical smallpox, says virologist Mark Buller of St. Louis University.

In the Congo basin, an area crossed and re-crossed by battling armies in the Democratic Republic of Congo's long civil war, people are suffering, almost out of sight of the rest of the world, from a monkeypox strain that causes disfiguring rashes, headaches, fevers and sometimes blindness. About 10% of those affected die â" a rate approximating the African death rate from smallpox.

If the last part is true, that's not something to take lightly.

1) I didn't claim monkeypox was a good candidate for a pandemic.
2) Do you have any believable citations for your claim on how monkeypox spreads?

The following contradicts your claim:
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs161/en/

Secondary transmission is human-to-human, resulting from close contact with infected respiratory tract excretions, with the skin lesions of an infected person or with recently contaminated objects. Transmission via droplet respiratory particles has also been documented. Transmission can also occur by inoculation or via the placenta (congenital monkeypox). There is no evidence to date that person-to-person transmission alone can sustain monkeypox in the human population.

Despite the last sentence, based on the rest of the paragraph I doubt you'd still want anyone who might have monkeypox to roam freely.
1) It's still a nasty disease to get
2) Some other animal might get it from the human, and monkeypox might be sustainable in that species.

Seems that Prairie Dogs can get it.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5224a1.htm
http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/10/3/03-0878_article.htm
And I doubt all the 87 infected humans were exposed to the blood of prairie dogs, or bitten.

1) I didn't claim monkeypox was a good candidate for a pandemic.
2) Do you have any believable citations for your claim on how monkeypox spreads?

The following contradicts your claim:
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs161/en/

Secondary transmission is human-to-human, resulting from close contact with infected respiratory tract excretions, with the skin lesions of an infected person or with recently contaminated objects. Transmission via droplet respiratory particles has also been documented. Transmission can also occur by inoculation or via the placenta (congenital monkeypox). There is no evidence to date that person-to-person transmission alone can sustain monkeypox in the human population.

Despite the last sentence, based on the rest of the paragraph I doubt you'd still want anyone who might have monkeypox to roam freely.
1) It's still a nasty disease to get
2) Some other animal might get it from the human, and monkeypox might be sustainable in that species.

Seems that Prairie Dogs can get it.
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5224a1.htm
http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/10/3/03-0878_article.htm
And I doubt all the 87 infected humans were exposed to the blood of prairie dogs, or bitten.

Don't allow herbivorous to eat there own' species.
That's the problem.

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/bse/

I think TFA's headline was pretty accurate: Whooping cough vaccine fades in pre-teens.

Among fully immunized kids, there were about 36 cases for every 10,000 children two to seven years old, compared to 245 out of every 10,000 kids aged eight to 12.

"The longer you went from your last vaccine, the greater your risk of disease," Witt told Reuters Health.

At age 13, the number of cases dropped, presumably because that's the age when children [were] eligible for their booster shot.

The CDC is apparently now recommending whooping cough booster shots be given at age 11:

Tdap [tetanus-diptheria-pertussis (whooping cough)] booster is recommended instead of the previously recommended Td (tetanus-diphtheria) booster.

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/pertussis/recs-summary.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/pertussis/default.htm#recs

Nothing (anti-vaccine) to see here. Move along.

I think TFA's headline was pretty accurate: Whooping cough vaccine fades in pre-teens.

Among fully immunized kids, there were about 36 cases for every 10,000 children two to seven years old, compared to 245 out of every 10,000 kids aged eight to 12.

"The longer you went from your last vaccine, the greater your risk of disease," Witt told Reuters Health.

At age 13, the number of cases dropped, presumably because that's the age when children [were] eligible for their booster shot.

The CDC is apparently now recommending whooping cough booster shots be given at age 11:

Tdap [tetanus-diptheria-pertussis (whooping cough)] booster is recommended instead of the previously recommended Td (tetanus-diphtheria) booster.

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/pertussis/recs-summary.htm
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/pertussis/default.htm#recs

Nothing (anti-vaccine) to see here. Move along.

You don't get the point at all. Herd immunity only works as long as the entire herd, or most of it, has immunity. As soon as a sizable portion no longer has immunity, they become a vector for infection and mutation of the illness for the rest of the herd.

That's why unvaccinated people are a danger to us all and should be pre-emptively quarantined for the rest of our safety. Note the recent several thousand case of pertussis epidemic in CA. Think about the ample chance for that to have mutated and spread into something a lot more serious, all so some morons can walk around endangering us all. I think perhaps pre-emptive quarantine might be a smarter move than I originally intended for a slightly tongue-in-cheek statement.

I'm glad you asked for the citation. After tracking down the source, it turns out my statement was slightly misleading and I get an opportunity to correct it. I apologize. Also, it pisses me off when other people make claims like this without backing them up, so I get to eat my own dog food.

A more accurate statement: 75% of health care costs in the U.S. are due to chronic conditions, and the chronic conditions that are due to lifestyle choices dominate this category.

Source (it's a nice overview of the problem): http://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/resources/publications/AAG/chronic.htm

5) If you're not properly educated about it, it's not really a choice. If you want to reduce abortions, you have to provide and encourage, cheap (preferably free), stigma free contraceptives to everyone. Being both anti-abortion and anti-sex ed is exactly the kind of stupidity that characterizes the conservative.

We have been "providing" cheap contraceptives. Condoms can be bought for as little as 15 cents each, and yet the US still has more than 800,000 abortions per year. And the rate is the highest in New York City, which doesn't suffer from "red state" social values.

Here is the actual study and is annoyingly light on details to help answer that question. The total number includes people diagnosed with Autistic Disorder, Aspergers, or Pervasive Developmental Disorder–Not Otherwise Specified. They have tables that slice and dice the data between gender, ethnicity, locality, IQ, and other factors, but nowhere in the paper do the say what the split between these categories is. The closest is a table that shows how many people were diagnosed before the age of 8.

If the increase is largely in Aspergers, the I would expect that it is mostly due to increased diagnosis, since it didn't didn't even have an official diagnosis standard until the early 90's and didn't enter into mainstream awareness till about a decade later.

Without this information I have no idea how to react. If we are seeing a huge increase in the number of people with low functioning Autism, that is a cause for alarm. If we are mostly seeing an increase in the number of people with Aspergers, then that's a good thing, because it means that more people with Aspergers are receiving information that can help them live their lives better, and there isn't much to be concerned about.

This talks about phosphorous in pesticides, which is a different allotrope of phosphorous known as yellow phosphorous.

Here is a quote about white phosphorous from http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp103-c2.pdf

White phosphorus is the most active allotropic form and is extremely toxic when inhaled, ingested, or absorbed through burned areas (Eldad and Simon 1991). It is fat soluble, glows in yellow-green light, and ignites spontaneously upon drying and exposure to air. Storage of white phosphorus in water prevents it from burning spontaneously (Eldad and Simon 1991). White phosphorus can cause thermal injury and hygroscopic damage by absorbing water from surrounding tissues. It reacts with oxygen and water to form strong acids (H3PO2, H3PO3) and combines with metals like copper to form dark-colored inactive salts (Eldad and Simon 1991).
White phosphorus particles can burn on the surface of the skin or penetrate deep into the tissues when carried on shrapnel particles. Local destruction of tissues continues as long as white phosphorus is exposed to oxygen. White phosphorus smoke with a garlic odor is characteristic of white phosphorus burns (Eldad and Simon 1991). High mortality rates seen following white phosphorus burns can be due to its absorption from the burned surface, which may result in multi-organ failure (mainly liver and kidneys), hyperphosphatemia, hypocalcemia, and electrocardiogram (ECG) abnormalities (ST depression, QT elongation, microvoltage of QRS and bradycardia) (Bowen et al. 1971; Eldad and Simon 1991).

Everybody knows that everything causes cancer in California.

Yes... the state of California is known to the State of California to
contain substances cause cancer.

It was interesting about 15 years ago -- all the large commercial
apartment buildings posted warning signs on their property.
Someone noticed that automobiles have gas tanks and gas
tanks contain gasoline and gasoline can contain some unknown
amount of a substance on the hit parade (benzine IIRC).

BTW: That had them covered when HPV was identified as cancer causing.
Any tenant with an HPV infection would be known to contain substances
known to cause cancer.
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/hpv/

Not that you'll take these stats seriously, but here is some information: http://www.cdc.gov/Motorvehiclesafety/Impaired_Driving/bac.html

Please tell that to the families of the thousands of people who are killed in DUI-related traffic accidents every year.
http://www.cdc.gov/MotorVehicleSafety/Impaired_Driving/impaired-drv_factsheet.html

Cardiopulmonary will still top the list (including your pneumonia), accidents will probably move from third to second (If you count strokes in the first category by including the vascular system). It's tough to decide if people surviving cancer will be taken out by the ticker or a bug in the lungs. A reasonable assumption will be an even distribution among remaining causes.

Heart disease: 599,413

Cancer: 567,628

Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 137,353

Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 128,842

Accidents (unintentional injuries): 118,021

Alzheimer's disease: 79,003

Diabetes: 68,705

Influenza and Pneumonia: 53,692

Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 48,935

Intentional self-harm (suicide): 36,909

Data from the CDC

The United State's CDC takes Zombie Apocalypse seriously. I'm just heeding the warning that my government is giving me. It's part of being a responsible citizen.

Let's try some actual references with, you know, facts, and stuff.

Instead of just making stuff up.

Most death in the UK is from cardiopulmonary related issues. These are often not preventable (something one can delay, or trade for another category) - typical human end of life stuff. After that is cancer - some of this is access to care (particularly early access), but much of which is still luck of the draw. Government can sponsor research, and it can improve access to care, but a lot of current cancer related death isn't something that can be impacted by the government very easily. Accidents however are something that is, by comparison, dead easy to influence from the government perspective (new laws, enforcement of existing law). So, of the examples you've listed and the stat's I've linked to here - it's a dumb simple selection for traffic as the most effective point of government interaction. Not that the other (and harder) problem's shouldn't be addressed, but I would think traffic is a logical emphasis rather than an illogical obsession.

Related to where I live, the UK does rather well compared to the US - about half of the accidental death rate as ours (5%).

Accident statistics in the U.S. do not seem to support the supposed danger of driving while talking on cell phones. During the period when cell phones became wildly popular here, the automobile accident rate has dropped sharply. According to the Centers for Disease Control http://www.cdc.gov/Motorvehiclesafety/mmwr_achievements.html/ "From 2000 to 2009, while the number of vehicle miles traveled on the nation's roads increased by 8.5%, the death rate related to that travel declined from 14.9 per 100,000 population to 11.0 and the injury rate declined from 1,130 to 722." Yes, there were other factors, like seat belt laws, but if cell phones were such a major danger, it's hard to believe deaths could have fallen that much at the exact same time they became ubiquitous.