this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2024
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Medical Error Is Not the Third Leading Cause of Death (skeptoid.com)
submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/skeptic
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[–] FlyingSquid 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (1 children)

There are also a lot of different kinds of medical errors...

[–] FlyingSquid 4 points 3 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.