Way to go
Courtesy of colleague Sonja Elmquist, here's a chart created by The Economist showing the odds of an American dying in each of a variety of accidental ways. (So things that aren't, strictly speaking, accidents, such as heart disease and cancer, aren't on the list.)
The top one, poisoning, jumps out at me, and I'd like to know more about that. I wouldn't have thought poisoning would rank so high even if you included all manner of drug overdoses. Also, the list includes snake bites but not shark attacks, which I find a little disappointing inasmuch as during the summer cable news seems capable of talking about little else.
Comments (1)
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I imagine the poisoning includes young kids ingesting household products, perhaps? I dunno how big a number that is ...
Posted on September 16, 2008 4:59 PM