Cause of Death

How Do You Ruin California?

noreply@blogger.com (Lucy Autrey Wilson) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 18:18:00 +0000

Answer: By turning it into a prison state!

My paternal grandfather dropped out of school after the 8th grade but his eldest son, my father, got the equivalent of a PhD. In our family, getting a higher education was a primary goal. Although we had very little money, my father insisted his five daughters go to college. This meant, when I was growing up, we never had a new car, I wore second hand clothes and we ate out in a restaurant on average once per year. When I first enrolled at UCSD in 1967, with my father paying my tuition, it was one of the best and most affordable colleges in the U.S. At that time higher education in California received 16.8% of the general fund while corrections received 4%. How times have changed! The latest state budget has only 9.7% going to higher education while the allocation for corrections has risen to 7.3%. Study after study show that healthier, longer lives (and lower health care costs) are directly correlated to education. If fewer and fewer Californians can afford college, more and more of them will end up in prison or dead prematurely. This is a sorry state indeed!

Do the Good Die Young?

noreply@blogger.com (Lucy Autrey Wilson) — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 17:25:00 +0000

You be the Judge!

Audrey Hepburn, who played innocents in most of her films, died of cancer at age 63. Bette Davis, who played tough broads, also died of cancer but not until age 81.

How else do the #3 and #2 stars on AFI's 100 years ... 100 Stars list compare?

Audrey Hepburn
Academy Award nominations for Best Actress: 5
Oscars for Best Actress: 1 for Roman Holiday (1953)
Top grossing film: My Fair Lady (1964) with $531.2 million/($76.0 million) in all-release domestic box office (in equivalent 2009 $'s/(unadjusted $'s))
Top salary: $7.6 million/($1.1 million) for My Fair Lady (in equivalent 2009 $'s/(unadjusted $'s))

Bette Davis
Academy Award nominations for Best Actress: 11
Oscars for Best Actress: 2 for Dangerous (1935) and Jezebel (1938)
Top grossing film: Watch on the Rhine (1943) with $137.5 million/($5.6 million) in all-release domestic box office (in equivalent 2009 $'s/(unadjusted $'s))
Top salary: $1.4 million/($200,000) for Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964) (in equivalent 2009 $'s/(unadjusted $'s)

Man Bit by Spider Becomes Superhero

noreply@blogger.com (Lucy Autrey Wilson) — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:25:00 +0000

It's comic con in San Diego and I'm sorry I'm not there. So, to tie in with the convention and continue the theme of death from spider bites, I thought it worth noting that some good things can come from spider bites - such as the creation of the super hero Spiderman. I mention this mainly because the design website that has the best anti-smoking images around HERE, also has some very cool Superhero artwork HERE

Watch out for deadly spiders!

noreply@blogger.com (Lucy Autrey Wilson) — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 19:11:00 +0000

Summer is one of the peak months for deadly spider bites. 18% of all 32 U.S. deaths, tabulated by the CDC 2002 through 2004 from venomous spider bites, occurred in the month of July. The spiders to look out for are the hobo, brown recluse and black widow. Information on what they look like can be found on the NIOSH website HERE. I've found two black widow spiders at my house. One was living under the roof and the other was hiding in the rose garden. Not only are they nasty for eating their lovers after mating, they make the ugliest spider webs I've ever seen. Worst of all, their venom is 15 times stronger than a rattlesnakes. More information on these unpleasant creatures can be found on the National Geographic website HERE.

photo from NIOSH

Deadly Sea Monsters

noreply@blogger.com (Lucy Autrey Wilson) — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 21:13:00 +0000

Photo by Roy Caldwell; calacademy.org

Quirk, the publisher who brought you the popular book Pride and Prejudice and Zombies has a trailer here for their Quirk Classics #2 Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters. Contrary to appearances, most octopus are harmless, except for the Hapalochlaena lunulata which resides in tide pools in the Pacific ocean. It is one of the most venomous animals in the world with a toxicity 10,000 times greater than cyanide. The odds of getting killed by one, however, are nearly nil.

For more info on deadly sea creatures, see the Cause of Death book chapter on accidental deaths by Flora and Fauna and check out the California Academy of Sciences website and Australia's Great Barrier reef website on what to do if you're bitten by one

Michael Jackson R.I.P.

noreply@blogger.com (Lucy Autrey Wilson) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:35:00 +0000

The world has lost another gifted performer prematurely with the death of Michael Jackson at age 50. Although his death appears to have been accidental, and may or may not relate to use of the surgical anesthetic Propofol for insomnia, until the autopsy results are in what killed him is not yet known. What is clear is that it was too early for a male living in the U.S. According to the CIA World Factbook, the average U.S. male's life expectancy in 2009 is 75.65 years, 25 years more than Michael's life. Of course, if Michael Jackson had lived in Afghanistan, his life would have been longer than normal, given the average life expectancy of an Afghany male at 44.47 years.

I was lucky enough to meet the "King of Pop" at a Lucasfilm picnic in 1982 (as photographed above) several years before he starred in the short 17 minute George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola 3-D film collaboration Captain Eo for Walt Disney Attractions in 1986. He was clearly an exceptional talent who will be missed.

Did you know insomnia can kill you?

noreply@blogger.com (Lucy Autrey Wilson) — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 18:15:00 +0000

According to the book Cause of Death, 3 people died from insomnia in 2001. Having recently experienced a bout of insomnia myself, which resulted in my canceling an event I was looking forward to, I did a little more research on this silent killer. According to the National Institute of Health (NIH), there are two types of insomnia. But there's an even scarier type called Fatal Familial Insomnia which is caused by a prion similar to that which is responsible for mad cow disease. In the case of insomnia, however, as with many other afflictions, the cure is often worse than the disease. Many more people die accidentally from drug overdoses trying to "cure" their insomnia (and other disorders) to the point that accidental drug overdoses are now the second cause of unintentional injury, second only to motor-vehicle crashes. There's an interesting podcast from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) here on that. So, having thrown away my sleeping pills, I may need to give up eating beef as well!

Thinking of quitting cigarettes?

noreply@blogger.com (Lucy Autrey Wilson) — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 20:12:00 +0000

This link should help:

How Many People Die From Happiness?

noreply@blogger.com (Lucy Autrey Wilson) — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 18:40:00 +0000

Answer: None, zip, zero. Happiness is what keeps us alive.

The Cause of Death book blog is closed for the holidays and will be back live in 2009. Happy Christmas to all and to all a good night.

How Much Would Legalizing Marijuana Reduce the Federal Deficit?

noreply@blogger.com (Lucy Autrey Wilson) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 01:54:00 +0000

ANSWER: Not Much

Although legalized marijuana would provide an additional "sin tax" revenue stream, along with tobacco and alcohol, the estimated $27.9 billion collected in 2010 ($11,030 million from alcohol, $10,700 million from tobacco and an estimated $6,200 million from marijuana) would be less than 1% of the projected federal receipts of $2,931,348 million that year. But, then, every little bit helps! For more info see the GAO 2009 budget.

HISTORY - It was during World War II (1939-1945) that then President Franklin D. Roosevelt made tobacco a protected crop after America's consumption of tobacco rose 2 1/2 times between 1930 and 1940. Roosevelt had already overseen the repeal of the 18th amendment in 1933, which had outlawed alcohol in 1919. The $1.2 billion in revenue from "sin" taxes in 1940 rose to $3.7 billion in 1947 and helped move the country towards a post-war budget surplus after running at a deficit from 1934 through 1946. But as a % of all federal receipts, excise taxes on alcohol and tobacco has declined each decade from a high point in 1940, when alcohol and tobacco excise taxes exceeded the individual income tax by 5%, to 1% or less from 1990 through a projected 2010.

TOBACCO - Tobacco is estimated to kill 440,000 annually in the U.S. and 2.1 million worldwide. It causes 30% of all cancers and is the primary cause of the rise in cancer death rates around the world.

ALCOHOL - According to the CDC, alcohol was responsible for 21,634 alcohol-induced deaths in the U.S. in 2005. If not used in excess, however (no more than 8 ounces daily), alcohol has been proven to be good for you.

MARIJUANA - Weed accounts for 0 to 2 annual deaths in the U.S. This does not count the possible deaths from smoking-related causes or from driving stoned. Because it is illegal, there is no excise tax revenue and the cost of policing it is high. According to a recent report cited on About.Com, the U.S. spends about $7.7 billion per year in state and federal enforcement expenses and loses another $6.2 billion in potential excise tax revenue on marijuana. As with alcohol, there are many documented benefits from the safe use of marijuana.

When Death Has A Name

noreply@blogger.com (Lucy Autrey Wilson) — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 19:29:00 +0000

Tropical storms and atomic bombs share two things: They are each given names and they can be very deadly.

So how does the deadliest cyclone compare to the deadliest atomic bomb explosions? Mother nature, at least so far, has been more destructive.

In November 1970, Cyclone Bhola struck East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and killed an estimated 500,000. With a Bangladesh population in 1970 of 67,403,000 people that's a death rate of 741.8 per 100,000. (That's about the same death rate as the 65 to 74 year olds who died from all types of cancer in the U.S. in 2005 (742.7 per 100,000 persons in that age range)).

In August 1945, the bombs Littleboy and Fatman were exploded by the U.S. in Hiroshima and Nagasaki Japan during World War II killing 214,000. With a Japanese population in 1945 of 71,998,104 that's a rate of death of 297.2 per 100,000. (Slightly more than the death rate for 65-74 year olds who died from lung cancer in the U.S. in 2005 (259.6 per 100,000 persons age 65-74)).

Interestingly, the population of Japan in 1945 (72 million people) was higher than the population of Bangladesh (67 million) and Pakistan (66 million) in 1970. That has changed. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, Bangladesh is projected to have 160 million people by 2010, Pakistan 171 million and Japan a mere 127 million as the world careens from a 1970 population of 3.7 billion to a projected 6.8 billion in 2010.

For more on atomic bomb names check out this Geoscience website from the Australian Government.

For more on the naming of storms, the World Meterological Organization has a great website.

Cancer, Tobacco and The Movies

noreply@blogger.com (Lucy Autrey Wilson) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 17:37:00 +0000

Recent news at YAHOO is predicting Cancer will overtake heart disease as the world's top killer by 2010. As of 2002, it was already the #1 premature cause of death in the U.S. and the #3 cause of premature death in the world (per Cause of Death). The primary reason for cancer's growth in developing countries around the world is tobacco. For a great tobacco timeline check out Tobacco.org.

Unlike developing countries such as India and China, where smoking is on the increase, the trend in the U.S. for both incidence and death rates from cancer is down per the Annual Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer primarily due to three factors: a) a decline in smoking, b) a reduction in the use of hormonal replacement therapy and c) an increase in colon cancer screening. But cigarette smoking still accounts for 30% of all cancer deaths in the U.S. and involves not only the lungs but also the mouth, larynx, esophagus, stomach, bladder, pancreas, liver, kidney, uterine cervix and blood.

Smoking in the U.S. increased during the Great Depression (1929-1939), then increased even more during and following World War II (1939-1945). By 1949, 44-47% of all adult Americans smoked. The increase was apparent not only by the number of actors smoking on the movie screen but in the way those same movie stars would later die. The number of deaths by cancer of the top 10 actors and top 10 actresses by decade rose from 4 of the 1930s stars to 6 of the 1940s stars to 10 of the 1950s stars. Wouldn't it be nicer if we could all go the way of Katharine Hepburn, a top 10 star in both the 1930s and the 1960s who died of natural causes at the age of 96?

Bed vs Bathtub Phobia

noreply@blogger.com (Lucy Autrey Wilson) — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 18:31:00 +0000

How Deadly is Neglect?

noreply@blogger.com (Lucy Autrey Wilson) — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 19:32:00 +0000

Question: Are you more likely to die if you are a neglected child or if you neglect to go to the dentist?

Answer: Neglecting your teeth will kill you more

In 2004, 230 died in the U.S. from tooth decay and gum disease; more female (144) than male (86). 187, or 81% were age 60 or older. During that same year, 202 died from neglect, abandonment or other maltreatment; 50% under the age of 1. 117 were males versus 85 females.

Parents, take care of your babies and teach them to brush their teeth!

Child Abuse and Murder: Spare The Rod And Spoil The Child?

noreply@blogger.com (Lucy Autrey Wilson) — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 23:59:00 +0000

Answer: The exact opposite is true.

The San Francisco Chronicle and Newser.com recently reported the tragic story of an abused teenager who was shackled and repeatedly beaten in Tracy, California before he escaped. The woman charged with his kidnapping and torture admitted she beat the boy, partly because she had been told that was how to discipline him.

The misguided notion of beating weakness out of a child has Germanic roots going back to before Hitler was born, which Swiss psychotherapist Alice Miller explored in an article published in the Journal of Psychohistory 1998. One could say the misguided child rearing techniques espoused by Dr. Daniel Gottlieb Moritz Schreber were partly to blame for World War II.

We can all thank Dr. Benjamin Spock from saving the world from more victims of child abuse. Although he specialized in pediatrics, he studied psychoanalysis for six years which made him the only practicing pediatrician of his time with that combination of training. In 1946 his book The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care was first published by Pocket Books for 25 cents (Pocket Books is also the publisher of Cause of Death: A Perfect Little Guide To What Kills Us) and included the ground-breaking notion that holding and showing affection to children would not only make them happier it would make them feel more secure.

The opposite effect of a happy childhood is exposed in the excellent book Base Instincts - What Makes Killers Kill? In it Dr. Jonathan H. Pincus, M.D. points out "it is the interaction of childhood abuse with neurologic disturbances and psychiatric illnesses that explains murder." In the 150 murderers Dr. Pincus observed, 94% had experienced severe physical and sexual abuse as children.

If not for Spock, and other more recent good writers on better child rearing techniques, we might be experiencing a lot more murders in the U.S. than the 18,124 homicide deaths in 2005. Perhaps a good book on child rearing might be the perfect gift for anyone expecting a new baby in the New Year.

Man Eating Tigers

noreply@blogger.com (Lucy Autrey Wilson) — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 18:30:00 +0000

In 1937 Colonel Jim Corbett famously shot and killed a man-eating tigress in India who had killed and eaten 436 people. Her appetite for soft, slow moving flesh was the result of a bullet that damaged her teeth so maybe she was just getting back at her attackers. It is estimated 3 out of 1,000 tigers will attack people versus the 12.5 out of 1,000 humans who were involved in violent crimes in Wayne County, Detroit, Michigan, the city with the highest murder rate in the U.S. in 2005.

In 1986, the Indian government issued masks to groups of workers to thwart tiger attacks. Because tigers almost always attack from the rear, the thought was a mask worn on the back of the head would confuse the tigers enough to prevent attacks. This worked for awhile, until the smart cats figured it out. Of all sub-species of tiger, it is the Bengal which has gained the worst reputation as a man-eater. Approx. 80% of them live in India. According to this great website, if things continue as they are it is predicted the Royal Bengal tiger could be extinct by 2010, ironically the next 'Year of the Tiger.'

My wish would be that as much effort as goes into fixing Detroit's problems can be applied to saving the tiger.

Photo courtesy of www.lairweb.org.nz

What Are The Odds Of Dying At The Beach?

noreply@blogger.com (Lucy Autrey Wilson) — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 19:45:00 +0000

On Life Expectancy: How Bad Is Butter?

noreply@blogger.com (Lucy Autrey Wilson) — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 17:47:00 +0000

Answer: Not very if eaten in moderation.

As Julia Child once said "giving up butter means that in about two years you will be covered in dandruff." Julia cooked and ate well using natural, fresh ingredients and lived to a ripe old age of 91. She beat the 53 year average life span of folks born when she was in 1912 by 38 years. Maybe if we cook, eat and live like Julia Child did, we can beat the 2004 (the year she died) average life expectancy of 78 years by another 38 years and live happily and healthily well past our 100s.

The Food Guys weigh in on butter:
http://www.jsu.edu/news/jan_june2006/05172006d.html

Julia Child mini bio:
http://www.biography.com/search/article.do?id=9246767

Read more about life expectancy in the Cause of Death book
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Cause-of-Death/Jack-Mingo/e/9781416554790/?itm=1

Can Corn Kill You?

noreply@blogger.com (Lucy Autrey Wilson) — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 18:28:00 +0000

Yes. Especially in the form of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), which can be found in soda pop, juice drinks, pancake syrup, fruit-flavored yogurt, ketchup and BBQ sauce, pasta sauce, canned soup, canned fruit and breakfast cereals. HFCS is a combination of glucose and fructose and the fructose part doesn’t generate insulin like other forms of sugar. That means you don’t feel full and can keep on drinking and eating until you are over weight. With the excess sugar and the weight comes diabetes which killed 75,119 people in the U.S. in 2005.

Corn was introduced to the Pilgrims by Native Americans in the 17^th century and was celebrated at what we now know as the original Thanksgiving. Today, relatives of the first Americans now suffer along with Blacks and Whites from corn’s transformation in our food. Diabetes death rates vary by race from a high of 33.2 per 100,000 Black Americans to 25.9 for American Indians to 24.9 for Whites to a low 11.2 for Asian Americans.

Maybe we should have sushi for Thanksgiving this year!

All about Indians and Thanksgiving: http://www.americanindians.com/Thanksgiving.htm

The corn/diabetes connection: http://www.diabeteshealth.com/read/2008/08/20/4274.html

More on the corn/diabetes connection: http://www.bioedonline.org/news/news.cfm?art=966

A fun corn documentary: http://www.kingcorn.net/

For more fun facts read the Cause of Death book
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Cause-of-Death/Jack-Mingo/e/9781416554790/?itm=1

Alcohol, Accidents and Holidays

noreply@blogger.com (Lucy Autrey Wilson) — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 22:01:00 +0000

Although more people tend to die in car crashes during the summer months (667 deaths over the 4th of July weekend in 2005 vs 563 over Thanksgiving that year), holidays are always a good time to be especially careful about drinking and driving. Young men age 15-24 experience the highest number of car crash deaths and, despite the fact that alcohol-related traffic crash fatalities have gone down from 60% in 1982 to 40% in 2004, alcohol continues to be a major cause.

If a car accident doesn't kill a young male drinking driver, his excessive alcohol consumption will start to take its toll in other ways within a few years time.

The American male hit hardest from alcohol-related causes is the Native American Indian. Between ages 25-44, American Indian males die from chronic liver disease and cirrhosis 10.3 times more than Asian Americans (who have the lowest death rates), experience accidental deaths 5.7 times more and commit suicide 2.1 times more.

Thanksgiving, to me, means thanks for this beautiful land we live in, which was inhabited first by our fellow Native Americans. My Thanksgiving wish is that they don't end the holidays dead.

National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism for traffic crash info:
http://www.niaaa.nih.gov/Resources/DatabaseResources/QuickFacts/TrafficCrashes/crash01.htm

CDC for deaths from select causes by month in 2005:
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/MortFinal2005_Worktable304.pdf

Cause of Death book chapters on Accidents, Suicide and Bad Plumbing for lots more
http://www.amazon.com/Cause-Death-Perfect-Little-Guide/dp/1416554793/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1227555161&sr=1-1

Vampire Week Wrap-Up

noreply@blogger.com (Lucy Autrey Wilson) — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:36:00 +0000

With the vampire movie Twilight opening today, I thought it would be fun to do a week's worth of blogs on real life vampires.

On Monday I asked if you'd ever seen a vampire with freckles and by Tuesday I concluded that human vampires are just not nice people. Wednesday and Thursday I took a closer look at some creepy crawlies and their vampire tendencies.

So, in the end, which is the deadliest vampire in the U.S.?
Answer: The mighty mosquito (based on how many deaths they caused in 2004)

Mosquito: 92 deaths - West Nile(79), Malaria (8), Viral Encephalitis (5)
Tick: 12 deaths - Lyme disease (6), Rocky Mountain spotted fever (6)
Assassin Bug: 2 deaths - Chagas disease
Flea: 1 death - the plague
Vampire Bat: 0 or unknown (3 rabies deaths were probably due to dog bites)
Leech: 0
Lice: 0
Human/cannibal serial killer: 0 or unknown

How Deadly Are Assassin Bugs?

noreply@blogger.com (Lucy Autrey Wilson) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 18:45:00 +0000

It depends on where you live.

In Venezuela, which has a population about 8% the size of the United States, the Assassin bug (also known as the kissing bug) caused 716 human deaths from Chagas disease in 2004, way more than the 41 who died there because of mosquito bites (35 from malaria, 4 from dengue fever and 2 from yellow fever). But in the U.S. that same year there were only 2 deaths from Chagas disease. The blood sucking creature that killed more North Americans was the mosquito with 92 deaths in 2004 (79 from West Nile, 8 from malaria and 5 from mosquito-borne viral encephalitis). Ticks also pose a threat killing 12 Americans from tick-caused Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain Fever.

What is Chagas Disease? http://www.cdc.gov/chagas/factsheets/detailed.html

What do killer mosquitoes look like? http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/arbor/mosqpics.htm

What is Malaria? http://www.cdc.gov/malaria/

What is Dengue Fever? http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/dengue/

What is Yellow Fever? http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/yellowfever/

What is West Nile Fever? http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvbid/westnile/wnv_factsheet.htm

Want more cool bug photos? http://bugguide.net/node/view/15740

Fleas and the Plague: The Small Vampire That Could

noreply@blogger.com (Lucy Autrey Wilson) — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 19:57:00 +0000

The plague is still with us! 137 million people died from it during the major epidemics that swept the globe in the 6th, 14th and 17th centuries. That's 10 times more than the 13 million victims of Joseph Stalin's purges of his perceived enemies in Russia in the 1930s. In the U.S. today, 1 person died of the plague in each of 2004 and 2005.

According to the Rocky Mountain National Park, the plague is prevalent in wild animals and is still spread by fleas. Unlike the earlier plagues that killed 90% of those exposed, antibiotics can now treat the disease. But untreated bubonic plague is still fatal in 50% of all cases. That old adage 'fed wildlife most often results in dead wildlife' might just pertain to you! http://www.nps.gov/archive/romo/visit/hazards.html

If you want to go hiking in Washington or Oregon state, where some other vampires were recently filming the movie Twilight, here's a good source. Just steer clear of the wildlife! http://www.nwhiker.com/wilderness.html

Image from the National Agricultural Biosecurity Center at Kansas State University
http://nabc.ksu.edu/content/factsheets/category/Plague

Human Vampires Are Not Nice People

noreply@blogger.com (Lucy Autrey Wilson) — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 20:10:00 +0000

The inspiration for Count Dracula, in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, was Vald "the Impaler" who ruled Romania in the 15th century. He impaled hundreds of his enemies on stakes and displayed them in the town square. http://www.romaniatourism.com/dracula.html

If vampires are those who feed on the blood of the living, the closest thing we have in real life today are cannibalistic killers. According to the FBI, serial killings represent less than 1% of all murders (based on total homicide deaths of 18,124 in 2005, serial killings in the U.S. would be fewer than 180. That's about 118,000 fewer than the number of Americans who died as a result of accidents that year). Cannibal serial killers are even rarer.

Some famously disturbed cannibal serial killers are:
Andrei Chickatilo: born October 1936, died February 1994. Killed 53 people in the Soviet Union between 1978 and 1990.
Jeffrey Dahmer: born May 1960, died November 1994. Killed 17 people in Ohio and Wisconsin between 1978 and 1991.
Albert Fish: born May 1870, died January 1936. Killed 5+ people in New York between 1924 and 1932.
Hadden Clark: born April 1951. Killed 2-3 people in Maryland between 1986 and 1992.

For more information on the #11 cause of premature death in the U.S., see the Murder chapter in the Cause of Death book.

photo from wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_killers

Ever See A Vampire With Freckles?

noreply@blogger.com (Lucy Autrey Wilson) — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 20:12:00 +0000

Probably not!

Freckles are a result of exposure to the sun, which is also the best source of Vitamin D. While exposure to the sun, especially for someone fair skinned, can result in melanoma, a lethal type of skin cancer from which 7,818 people died in the U.S. in 2003, lack of Vitamin D can weaken bones causing the deaths of 13,700 older Americans age 65+ who died from falls as a result of osteoporosis that same year. Vitamin D deficiencies are also thought to be the cause of some colon, breast and prostrate cancers, especially since higher cancer rates are found at higher latitudes where there is less sun exposure.

So, if vampires weren't eternal, they would be much more likely to die as a result of their sun avoidance, than their fair freckled sun loving relatives.