Bill Gates Posts Data Of Causes Of Death In The US, Is Amazed By The Disconnect Between News And Reality
Bill Gates has 47.4 million Twitter followers, so when he tweets something, it gets noticed. Recently, the billionaire Microsoft founder has directed everyone’s attention towards an issue he’s been seeing for a while. The media isn’t accurately reflecting what we’re dying from, and Mr. Gates thinks this disconnect shows that the news is trying to spin a story instead of addressing the real causes of death.
More info: Twitter
The media isn’t accurately reflecting what we’re dying from
Image credits: BillGates
The statistical graphs that Bill Gates tweeted comes from a project, titled Death: Reality vs. Reported, by students of the University of California San Diego. The researchers attempted to answer these questions: how do people die, how do people think they die, and is there a difference. To get some answers, they set out to investigate if there’s a disconnect between what one sees in news sources and the real ugly truth.
For their project, the students look at four sources: The Center for Disease Control’s WONDER database for public health data (1999-2016), Google Trends search volume (2004-2016), The Guardian’s article database, and The New York Times’ article database. “For all of the above data, we looked at the top 10 largest causes of mortality, as well as terrorism, overdoses, and homicides, three other causes of death which we believe receive a lot of media attention,” they wrote. For each, the relative share of deaths, share of Google searches, and share of media coverage, were calculated.
Actual causes of death vs. Google search trends for causes of death
Image credits: ourworldindata
“Immediately, we can see that terminal illnesses like cancer and heart disease take up a major chunk of all deaths, each responsible for around 30% of the total death count,” the researchers wrote. “On the graph, everything is visible except for terrorism, which is so small it doesn’t show up unless we zoom in.”
Next, the Google Trends data. “The two major changes here seem to be that heart disease is underrepresented, and terrorism is very much overrepresented. Suicide also looks like it has several times more relative share here than compared to the actual death rate. The rest of the causes look like they’re within the right order of magnitude as the CDC data.”
Actual causes of death vs. death coverage in the media (The Guardian)
Image credits: ourworldindata
Actual causes of death vs. death coverage in the media (New York Times)
Image credits: ourworldindata
“Here, we see that terrorism, cancer, and homicides are the causes of death that are most mentioned in the newspapers. Though the share that cancer occupies seems largely proportional, the share given to both homicides and terrorism appears grossly overrepresented, given their respective share of total deaths.”
“After looking at our data, we found that, like results before us, the fake news given by media outlets and Google searches does not match the actual distribution of deaths,” they concluded. “This suggests that general public sentiment is not well-calibrated with the ways that people actually die. Heart disease and kidney disease appear largely underrepresented in the sphere of public attention, while terrorism and homicides capture a far larger share, relative to their share of deaths caused.”
People had a lot to say about this
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Share on FacebookKing of fear and distrust must be Hitler and now trump. So scared of the "others" you'd follow them.
Load More Replies...Media companies are heavily involved in politics, so their stories will reflect things that further the interests of their goal. On top of that, sensational stories sell. So you're slowly seeing certain rights or laws changing, all because people are just to dumb to vote with their brain most of the time.
Yep. The Sinclair Group owns everything. It's frightening.
Load More Replies...What is also interesting is that we kill ourselves more often than we are killed by others....I certainly would not have guessed that from media coverage....
Just because someone kills him/herself doesn't mean it's not someone else's fault.
Load More Replies...I have no research to back me but I think this is true about a lot of things. I feel the media, mainstream and social, searches for the most horrific things to air and we're starting to think it's normal. I realize the mundane doesn't sell but still.... The only choice you have is horror stories, what the latest "celebrity" is wearing , or turning it off. It takes a brave person to start your day out with the news and still find the courage to leave your house.
"If it bleeds, it leads." I got rid of TV about 18 months ago and that helps a lot. I still read the paper. Now I want to clean up my internet consumption.
Load More Replies...The news should cover death from heart disease the way they cover homicide and terrorism. Make people more afraid of it than anything else.
You know that a report on someone who died of a heart disease isn't sensational or shocking. So do the newsagencies. Besides that: The major causes for heart diseases are living a sedentary lifestyle and not getting enough physical exercise, eating an unhealthy diet that’s high in fat proteins, trans fats, sugary foods, and sodium, smoking and excessive drinking. If all people would change their lifestyle, a lot of big companies would suffer tremendous financial losses. Which would mean the have to cut their advertising budget, which would mean that the newsagencies would suffer financial losses. And that's why they don't cover deaths from heart diseases.
Load More Replies...You are absolutely right. It does. Heart disease at an advanced age is one thing, but an inactive, obese smoker with heart problems in mid-life is quite another.
Load More Replies...We should be concerned about this. Actually, we should be quite alarmed because it feels like the same hyperinflation of alarming statistics is happening on many hot button issues. Political disharmony Immigration Gun violence Rich/Poor divide Me Too Armed conflicts Helicopter parenting Etc. If it has potential to cause controversy, help an organization push their agenda, generate more viewers, likes, and shares, or sell more advertising, it's going to get skewed then shouted from the proverbial rooftops. I'm concerned an issue I am most passionate about, suicide among veterans, is not being accurately reported. The widely reported number of 22 veterans a day killed by suicide on average has been disputed, ironically as being both too low and too high. Perhaps with enough voices sharing accurate and solid research, such as this, we may have a statistically significant chance of making a difference. But then, we could be guilty of skewing data to our advantage.
Very interesting! I really wish somebody would have made this comparison in my country.
*laughs at the requests for budgets set aside to solve these problems* Heart diseases is not a mystery. You have healthy living or you have heart disease. The govt cant fix that. A pill cant fix that. The real fix is a proper diet and exercise routine, not smoking or doing drugs. Aside from genetics, a person's lifestyle can influence this right out of their lives.
I agree but will add we do have a pill: statins. They were introduced 30 years ago - so not newsworthy. Also, heart disease has been steadily on the decline for the past 20 years while deaths from other causes have been on the rise.
Load More Replies...It's an interesting comparison. The media publishes what we want to read and watch , that's what sells the advertising. It's like comparing movie themes with reality. Reality might be more boring.
Reality is FAR more interesting, but the problem is that the interesting stuff takes effort to uncover. Much harder than just reading police reports.
Load More Replies...AND while you are at it, do the same statistic WITH the total advertisement revenues FROM ALL THE INDUSTRY MARKETING VERTICALS in your country. I would bet that the highest "contributing" industries are FOOD & BEVERAGES.....
Add to that the fact that the media outlets make out like the high school mass shootings are such an unusual occurrence when 80 school shootings have taken place between 2015-2018 with 80 people dead and hundreds wounded. The difference...many of shootings either involved a single shooter going after a single target or the victims involved weren't white kids from middle income backgrounds. News media outlets and broadcasters sensationalize stories to get the best ratings and the most clicks. If they are going to report news, report all of it....and be truthful about it.
The spending is about in proprotion to the media coverage is my guess.... No, wait. Terrorism would get way more than that in the US at least...
This is why i no longer can read / watch the news without taking it with a ton of salt, considering it fake news, as everything is blown out of proportion, and after having seen the original footage as sent in by the public, being twisted 20 minutes later and reported by BBC as something else, with a new sound and voice overlay, portraying something entirely different to what actually happened, my trust for modern day "journalism" is gone, as it is all about what sells, not the truth anymore, as well as the deep political bias that is being applied, leading to important but politically "inconvenient" news being suppressed. It is a sad state of affairs.
We call this fake news Mr. Gates. The President is trying to bring this to the discussion table and you should be supporting him and rallying with him to reveal the truth. He is trying to get the swamp completely drained out and the press is part of the swamp. Throw some money around Mr. Gates and help him accomplish this!
Where is Adverse effects of medical treatment (AEMT) and Medical Misadventure/Mistakes on these charts? Oops.
What are the age ranges? When I am 90 and have heart issues- I've hopefully had a full life. Everyone will die. That is what makes you live, but stealing a life by gun violence or lack of mental health support in a wealthy country is different.
Just disgusting. Why I don't watch news. All it does is support Big Pharma.
The stats are interesting, but I’m not sure what these people are trying to say... Of course news outlets are going to rare and sensational causes of death more than commonplace ones, that’s what makes them “newsworthy”...
LOL! Anyone with two working brain cells and no bias knows that the press distorts things to suit a political agenda. Heck, even this report distorts. It lumped all reports of terrorism together, making it seem as if all mentions of terrorism were about terrorism in the US. It also failed to mention the third leading cause of death in the US - Medical Mistakes. Not, "The patient was in such bad condition that nothing could save him'" but wrong meds, misreading charts, wrong dosage, botched surgery, types of mistakes.
To be fair terrorist attacks are global news and guardian isn't even a US based news corporation but a british...
Could we have them do this with something essential to the times, like actual deaths from covid vaccine compared to the fake count the media is putting out! Oh that's right, it's no longer mandatory to report the deaths for most places. So we'll never know. I know 2 people that have died, and we were told they're no longer reporting these deaths. Hmmm, yet it's still being pushed on us. Why?
Yes, let’s not worry about Islamist extremism until it gets to the point to where 20% of us are dying from it.
This completely ignores the factor of which cause the most premature deaths, especially preventable ones. Terrorism still doesn't factor in much but homicide and suicide and to a lesser extent cancer are on that list and thus receive more attention.
In the USA, more people have been killed by their own kitchen appliances since 9/11 than foreign terrorists. Including the 2,983 people who died in the WTC attack only 3,024 people have died from terrorism between 1975-2015 (about 74 people per year) More deadly: choking on food, heatwaves, bicycle or motorcycle accidents, animal attacks (including sharknadoes apparently), and suicide. 589de47031...c3-png.jpg
I'm not totally sure-- does this include reporting on obesity, and the importance of and tips on improving diet and getting more exercise? Because those are CONSTANTLY reported on and very directly related to diabetes and heart disease.
Where is quicksand? I was raised to believe that quicksand was a real problem.
I'm guessing that news of heart disease doesn't sell well next to the ads for McDonald's or Dairy Queen.
They used The Guardian and the NYT as examples? While biblical for the majority of readers of this site, I think it's a pretty skewed idiot posting.
Where is the "epidemic" of police killing people of color? *rolls eyes* I thought for sure that would be at the top b/c of media coverage.
over 20 years ago I remember reading the headline: "AIDs NOW ONE OF THE TOP KILLERS OF WOMEN." After looking at the actual numbers, I realized that dieing from being murdered or killing myself, (!) was more likely than dieing from AIDs.
Lurid gory details sell, news is a business, nothing sexy about heart disease, chronic illness basically this is a non story
Heart disease doesn't sell. We know it exists. The news doesn't have to say oh, 1000 people died of heart disease today. And they report on worldwide terrorism, so that would skew the data away from the US reported deaths.
Hmmmm. This is *very* dangerous. Information without context is information that can be abused -- and it looks like those who are of a mind to do so jumped right on that. Bill doesn't have to worry because he's filthy rich, and the dangerous conditions some others live in aren't reflected in his daily life. People who live in unstable neighbourhoods have very different concerns. When looking at those graphs, we also have to parse the causes behind those deaths as to whether or not they are preventable in a very real and measurable sense -- as well has how easily understood the events are. We only need to look at the state of science literacy among the general public to see why medical research doesn't get a great deal of journalistic coverage.
Can't tell if sarcastic. "Old age" isn't a cause of death.
Load More Replies...Media caters to its audience. Media is market-driven and focuses on what its consumers want. We ARE the media. "The Media" isn't a separate entity with an "agenda".
"The media" when it is purely for profit operations, as most TV channels are, sell one product, and one product only: that product is YOU, the audience. The programs are only the vehicle to sell the audience to advertisers. Many Tv channels and newspapers are part of media conglomerates with political ties. Rupert Murdoch (Newscorp) is worth some $19 billion. It is my opinion that such a concentration of media outlets ought to be illegal and ought to be forcibly broken up.
Load More Replies...This applies to everything on the news. I'm sure there are many more people speeding than home burglaries, but we don't need more news coverage of speeders. This said, I'm not a fan of the media, but this article is not compelling.
Overdoses are the leading cause of death in people under 50. Suicide is the 3rd leading cause of death of people 15-24. Deaths from heart diseases? 80% of those are people 65 years of age or older ...
Funny to see Elon Musk weighing in. I quote: "That’s why everyone doesn’t like [the bus]. And there’s like a bunch of random strangers, one of who might be a serial killer..." Do point out "serial killers" on the graph, Elon.
Well, yes, the news reports of things that are out of the ordinary. That's what makes it news worthy. Should they be reporting the many heart disease deaths everyday. That would get a bit redundant.
Apparently one of the commenters listed above, bumblefffffuuuu, does not exist. Screen-Sho...00-png.jpg
Unfortunately, Seniors are dying from deliberately poor healthcare. I relive my own Mother's death everyday at the hands of ONE ER NURSE who in my opinion broke several UNENFORCED laws designed to protect Seniors. Life Expectancy has been dropping in the U.S. for several years now, isn't that the real story not being told? IMG_7458_T...9af7ef.jpg
Where are the stats on quicksand!? Not gonna lie... Big Fear as a kid. Well that and the big worms from Tremors!! :)
OMG THANK YOU!!! i tell this all the time, but who am i, that someone would listen, thanks bill
Meaningless and really not research as news reporting and google searching have nothing in common but the topics they share in common. Good example of how having a lot of money and being connected with an institution of higher learning does not mean they know of what they speak.
So, let's say an 89-year-old person dies quietly in their bed with their family around them, after a long and happy life. Is that newsworthy? It's a good thing, but I don't see it as newsworthy, particularly. And that's a death from heart disease. See, the United States doesn't track "old age" as a cause of death. The vast majority of those "heart disease" deaths, most of those "cancer" deaths, most of those lower respiratory disease deaths, most of those stroke deaths -- those are things that most of us laypeople would just sort of think of as "death from old age." Doctors don't use that term, except in extremely rare conditions where a person who'd been under a single doctor's care for years dies when all their systems wear out pretty much simultaneously, quickly enough that you can't really decide which system went out first. So what you're seeing here is that "dying of old age is normal, not newsworthy."
I can't believe you are being downvoted dude. You are on the money. Four out of five people who die of heart disease are 65+ whereas drug overdose is the number one killer of people under 50. In addition, the media constantly covers every new study on diets, weight loss, exercise, etc., + sensationalism on teen smoking - all things that play a significant role in heart disease but would not get categorized as news coverage of heart disease per se. So many problems in the way Gates presents the data. Shame on a guy as smart as him using statistics to mislead in just the same way he implies the media misleads. He does not provide any more clarity, just more confusion and minimizes problems like suicide, drug addiction, mental health, gun violence, which already get short shrift.
Load More Replies...In reply, I say that corporations, with the government's help, are guilty of manslaughter (or similar crime). Healthy food is expensive and for many people unaffordable/unavailable; unhealthy food is cheap and abundant. The unhealthy food contributes to heart disease and cancer.
Load More Replies...King of fear and distrust must be Hitler and now trump. So scared of the "others" you'd follow them.
Load More Replies...Media companies are heavily involved in politics, so their stories will reflect things that further the interests of their goal. On top of that, sensational stories sell. So you're slowly seeing certain rights or laws changing, all because people are just to dumb to vote with their brain most of the time.
Yep. The Sinclair Group owns everything. It's frightening.
Load More Replies...What is also interesting is that we kill ourselves more often than we are killed by others....I certainly would not have guessed that from media coverage....
Just because someone kills him/herself doesn't mean it's not someone else's fault.
Load More Replies...I have no research to back me but I think this is true about a lot of things. I feel the media, mainstream and social, searches for the most horrific things to air and we're starting to think it's normal. I realize the mundane doesn't sell but still.... The only choice you have is horror stories, what the latest "celebrity" is wearing , or turning it off. It takes a brave person to start your day out with the news and still find the courage to leave your house.
"If it bleeds, it leads." I got rid of TV about 18 months ago and that helps a lot. I still read the paper. Now I want to clean up my internet consumption.
Load More Replies...The news should cover death from heart disease the way they cover homicide and terrorism. Make people more afraid of it than anything else.
You know that a report on someone who died of a heart disease isn't sensational or shocking. So do the newsagencies. Besides that: The major causes for heart diseases are living a sedentary lifestyle and not getting enough physical exercise, eating an unhealthy diet that’s high in fat proteins, trans fats, sugary foods, and sodium, smoking and excessive drinking. If all people would change their lifestyle, a lot of big companies would suffer tremendous financial losses. Which would mean the have to cut their advertising budget, which would mean that the newsagencies would suffer financial losses. And that's why they don't cover deaths from heart diseases.
Load More Replies...You are absolutely right. It does. Heart disease at an advanced age is one thing, but an inactive, obese smoker with heart problems in mid-life is quite another.
Load More Replies...We should be concerned about this. Actually, we should be quite alarmed because it feels like the same hyperinflation of alarming statistics is happening on many hot button issues. Political disharmony Immigration Gun violence Rich/Poor divide Me Too Armed conflicts Helicopter parenting Etc. If it has potential to cause controversy, help an organization push their agenda, generate more viewers, likes, and shares, or sell more advertising, it's going to get skewed then shouted from the proverbial rooftops. I'm concerned an issue I am most passionate about, suicide among veterans, is not being accurately reported. The widely reported number of 22 veterans a day killed by suicide on average has been disputed, ironically as being both too low and too high. Perhaps with enough voices sharing accurate and solid research, such as this, we may have a statistically significant chance of making a difference. But then, we could be guilty of skewing data to our advantage.
Very interesting! I really wish somebody would have made this comparison in my country.
*laughs at the requests for budgets set aside to solve these problems* Heart diseases is not a mystery. You have healthy living or you have heart disease. The govt cant fix that. A pill cant fix that. The real fix is a proper diet and exercise routine, not smoking or doing drugs. Aside from genetics, a person's lifestyle can influence this right out of their lives.
I agree but will add we do have a pill: statins. They were introduced 30 years ago - so not newsworthy. Also, heart disease has been steadily on the decline for the past 20 years while deaths from other causes have been on the rise.
Load More Replies...It's an interesting comparison. The media publishes what we want to read and watch , that's what sells the advertising. It's like comparing movie themes with reality. Reality might be more boring.
Reality is FAR more interesting, but the problem is that the interesting stuff takes effort to uncover. Much harder than just reading police reports.
Load More Replies...AND while you are at it, do the same statistic WITH the total advertisement revenues FROM ALL THE INDUSTRY MARKETING VERTICALS in your country. I would bet that the highest "contributing" industries are FOOD & BEVERAGES.....
Add to that the fact that the media outlets make out like the high school mass shootings are such an unusual occurrence when 80 school shootings have taken place between 2015-2018 with 80 people dead and hundreds wounded. The difference...many of shootings either involved a single shooter going after a single target or the victims involved weren't white kids from middle income backgrounds. News media outlets and broadcasters sensationalize stories to get the best ratings and the most clicks. If they are going to report news, report all of it....and be truthful about it.
The spending is about in proprotion to the media coverage is my guess.... No, wait. Terrorism would get way more than that in the US at least...
This is why i no longer can read / watch the news without taking it with a ton of salt, considering it fake news, as everything is blown out of proportion, and after having seen the original footage as sent in by the public, being twisted 20 minutes later and reported by BBC as something else, with a new sound and voice overlay, portraying something entirely different to what actually happened, my trust for modern day "journalism" is gone, as it is all about what sells, not the truth anymore, as well as the deep political bias that is being applied, leading to important but politically "inconvenient" news being suppressed. It is a sad state of affairs.
We call this fake news Mr. Gates. The President is trying to bring this to the discussion table and you should be supporting him and rallying with him to reveal the truth. He is trying to get the swamp completely drained out and the press is part of the swamp. Throw some money around Mr. Gates and help him accomplish this!
Where is Adverse effects of medical treatment (AEMT) and Medical Misadventure/Mistakes on these charts? Oops.
What are the age ranges? When I am 90 and have heart issues- I've hopefully had a full life. Everyone will die. That is what makes you live, but stealing a life by gun violence or lack of mental health support in a wealthy country is different.
Just disgusting. Why I don't watch news. All it does is support Big Pharma.
The stats are interesting, but I’m not sure what these people are trying to say... Of course news outlets are going to rare and sensational causes of death more than commonplace ones, that’s what makes them “newsworthy”...
LOL! Anyone with two working brain cells and no bias knows that the press distorts things to suit a political agenda. Heck, even this report distorts. It lumped all reports of terrorism together, making it seem as if all mentions of terrorism were about terrorism in the US. It also failed to mention the third leading cause of death in the US - Medical Mistakes. Not, "The patient was in such bad condition that nothing could save him'" but wrong meds, misreading charts, wrong dosage, botched surgery, types of mistakes.
To be fair terrorist attacks are global news and guardian isn't even a US based news corporation but a british...
Could we have them do this with something essential to the times, like actual deaths from covid vaccine compared to the fake count the media is putting out! Oh that's right, it's no longer mandatory to report the deaths for most places. So we'll never know. I know 2 people that have died, and we were told they're no longer reporting these deaths. Hmmm, yet it's still being pushed on us. Why?
Yes, let’s not worry about Islamist extremism until it gets to the point to where 20% of us are dying from it.
This completely ignores the factor of which cause the most premature deaths, especially preventable ones. Terrorism still doesn't factor in much but homicide and suicide and to a lesser extent cancer are on that list and thus receive more attention.
In the USA, more people have been killed by their own kitchen appliances since 9/11 than foreign terrorists. Including the 2,983 people who died in the WTC attack only 3,024 people have died from terrorism between 1975-2015 (about 74 people per year) More deadly: choking on food, heatwaves, bicycle or motorcycle accidents, animal attacks (including sharknadoes apparently), and suicide. 589de47031...c3-png.jpg
I'm not totally sure-- does this include reporting on obesity, and the importance of and tips on improving diet and getting more exercise? Because those are CONSTANTLY reported on and very directly related to diabetes and heart disease.
Where is quicksand? I was raised to believe that quicksand was a real problem.
I'm guessing that news of heart disease doesn't sell well next to the ads for McDonald's or Dairy Queen.
They used The Guardian and the NYT as examples? While biblical for the majority of readers of this site, I think it's a pretty skewed idiot posting.
Where is the "epidemic" of police killing people of color? *rolls eyes* I thought for sure that would be at the top b/c of media coverage.
over 20 years ago I remember reading the headline: "AIDs NOW ONE OF THE TOP KILLERS OF WOMEN." After looking at the actual numbers, I realized that dieing from being murdered or killing myself, (!) was more likely than dieing from AIDs.
Lurid gory details sell, news is a business, nothing sexy about heart disease, chronic illness basically this is a non story
Heart disease doesn't sell. We know it exists. The news doesn't have to say oh, 1000 people died of heart disease today. And they report on worldwide terrorism, so that would skew the data away from the US reported deaths.
Hmmmm. This is *very* dangerous. Information without context is information that can be abused -- and it looks like those who are of a mind to do so jumped right on that. Bill doesn't have to worry because he's filthy rich, and the dangerous conditions some others live in aren't reflected in his daily life. People who live in unstable neighbourhoods have very different concerns. When looking at those graphs, we also have to parse the causes behind those deaths as to whether or not they are preventable in a very real and measurable sense -- as well has how easily understood the events are. We only need to look at the state of science literacy among the general public to see why medical research doesn't get a great deal of journalistic coverage.
Can't tell if sarcastic. "Old age" isn't a cause of death.
Load More Replies...Media caters to its audience. Media is market-driven and focuses on what its consumers want. We ARE the media. "The Media" isn't a separate entity with an "agenda".
"The media" when it is purely for profit operations, as most TV channels are, sell one product, and one product only: that product is YOU, the audience. The programs are only the vehicle to sell the audience to advertisers. Many Tv channels and newspapers are part of media conglomerates with political ties. Rupert Murdoch (Newscorp) is worth some $19 billion. It is my opinion that such a concentration of media outlets ought to be illegal and ought to be forcibly broken up.
Load More Replies...This applies to everything on the news. I'm sure there are many more people speeding than home burglaries, but we don't need more news coverage of speeders. This said, I'm not a fan of the media, but this article is not compelling.
Overdoses are the leading cause of death in people under 50. Suicide is the 3rd leading cause of death of people 15-24. Deaths from heart diseases? 80% of those are people 65 years of age or older ...
Funny to see Elon Musk weighing in. I quote: "That’s why everyone doesn’t like [the bus]. And there’s like a bunch of random strangers, one of who might be a serial killer..." Do point out "serial killers" on the graph, Elon.
Well, yes, the news reports of things that are out of the ordinary. That's what makes it news worthy. Should they be reporting the many heart disease deaths everyday. That would get a bit redundant.
Apparently one of the commenters listed above, bumblefffffuuuu, does not exist. Screen-Sho...00-png.jpg
Unfortunately, Seniors are dying from deliberately poor healthcare. I relive my own Mother's death everyday at the hands of ONE ER NURSE who in my opinion broke several UNENFORCED laws designed to protect Seniors. Life Expectancy has been dropping in the U.S. for several years now, isn't that the real story not being told? IMG_7458_T...9af7ef.jpg
Where are the stats on quicksand!? Not gonna lie... Big Fear as a kid. Well that and the big worms from Tremors!! :)
OMG THANK YOU!!! i tell this all the time, but who am i, that someone would listen, thanks bill
Meaningless and really not research as news reporting and google searching have nothing in common but the topics they share in common. Good example of how having a lot of money and being connected with an institution of higher learning does not mean they know of what they speak.
So, let's say an 89-year-old person dies quietly in their bed with their family around them, after a long and happy life. Is that newsworthy? It's a good thing, but I don't see it as newsworthy, particularly. And that's a death from heart disease. See, the United States doesn't track "old age" as a cause of death. The vast majority of those "heart disease" deaths, most of those "cancer" deaths, most of those lower respiratory disease deaths, most of those stroke deaths -- those are things that most of us laypeople would just sort of think of as "death from old age." Doctors don't use that term, except in extremely rare conditions where a person who'd been under a single doctor's care for years dies when all their systems wear out pretty much simultaneously, quickly enough that you can't really decide which system went out first. So what you're seeing here is that "dying of old age is normal, not newsworthy."
I can't believe you are being downvoted dude. You are on the money. Four out of five people who die of heart disease are 65+ whereas drug overdose is the number one killer of people under 50. In addition, the media constantly covers every new study on diets, weight loss, exercise, etc., + sensationalism on teen smoking - all things that play a significant role in heart disease but would not get categorized as news coverage of heart disease per se. So many problems in the way Gates presents the data. Shame on a guy as smart as him using statistics to mislead in just the same way he implies the media misleads. He does not provide any more clarity, just more confusion and minimizes problems like suicide, drug addiction, mental health, gun violence, which already get short shrift.
Load More Replies...In reply, I say that corporations, with the government's help, are guilty of manslaughter (or similar crime). Healthy food is expensive and for many people unaffordable/unavailable; unhealthy food is cheap and abundant. The unhealthy food contributes to heart disease and cancer.
Load More Replies...
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