The claim that medical error is the third leading cause of death in the US has never been close to true.
  • Flying SquidEnglish
    4•4 months ago

    In 2022 (the last year for which final numbers are available as of this writing), the leading causes (in order) were heart disease (703,000), cancer (608,000), followed by accidents, COVID-19, stroke, lower respiratory diseases, Alzheimer’s, diabetes (at 101,000), and then the 98,000 number would rank only ninth.

    Those are pretty general categories too. There’s a lot of cancers and a lot of different sorts of heart disease. Not to mention an almost uncountable number of ways to die in an accident.

      • Flying SquidEnglish
        4•4 months ago

        True. I’m not sure if any category is really especially useful as a statistic. Am I more likely to die slipping in the bathtub than I am of eye cancer? That’s quite likely even if neither kill me because I’m guessing a lot more people die slipping in the bathtub than of a rare form of cancer.