Tag: causes of death

Traffic Death Rates Fell In States That Legalized Marijuana, New Study Finds, While Those That Kept Criminalization Saw ‘Slight Increase’

States that legalized marijuana in 2016 saw meaningful declines in traffic fatalities during the years immediately following the policy change, according to a new study by Quartz Advisor. Takeaways were less clear, however, over a longer period of time that included years the report describes as “anomalies” nationwide.

Ultimately, the paper concludes, motor vehicle safety “should not be a significant concern for marijuana legalization initiatives,” especially when measured against alcohol.

“As of yet, studies have failed to show that legalization of cannabis has resulted in any significant increase in traffic fatalities in the places where it has been legalized,” it says. “However, the same cannot be said for alcohol, an intoxicant that remains legal, widely available, and deeply ingrained in our culture.”

In states that legalized marijuana, “traffic fatalities declined or remained the same in the three years that followed, compared to a slight increase in states where it remained illegal.”

The findings, which are not peer-reviewed, examined traffic fatality data from four states that legalized adult-use cannabis in 2016: California, Maine, Massachusetts, and Nevada. Quartz Advisor then compared those states’ vehicle death rates to the national average as well as to rates in five states where marijuana remained illegal during that period: Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska, and Wyoming.

In the three years following the change, the report says, none of the four legalized states saw an increase in traffic deaths. Most, in fact, saw declines.

“Three of four the four states saw a significant decrease in vehicle deaths over that span,” the paper says, “while the rate in Maine showed no change. Massachusetts saw the biggest drop, as rates fell 28.6 percent in the three years following legalization.”

Combined, the four states that legalized marijuana saw an 11.6 percent drop in traffic death rates from 2016 to 2019. That’s a sharper decline than the national average, which fell 10.6 percent over the same period.

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Dozens of Death Certificates List COVID-19 Vaccination as Cause of Death

Dozens of people were killed by COVID-19 vaccines in the United States, death certificates show.

COVID-19 vaccination is listed on 26 death certificates across five states, an Epoch Times review found.

That includes a 78-year-old Minnesota man who died on Jan. 5, 2021. The man suffered sudden cardiac death just 10 hours after receiving a second COVID-19 vaccine dose.

Certifiers listed COVID-19 vaccination on part one of some certificates. According to guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), part one of a certificate is for causes that lead directly to death.

In other instances, the vaccination was listed in part two. That part is for “other significant conditions that contributed to the death,” according to instructions from the CDC for medical examiners and coroners.

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How the FDA approved an antipsychotic that failed to show a meaningful benefit but raised the risk of death

In trials, brexpiprazole failed to provide a clinically meaningful benefit and it increased mortality, but the FDA fast tracked its approval and the sponsor predicts $1bn in annual sales. Robert Whitaker investigates the first licensed antipsychotic for treating agitation in elderly patients with dementia

For years, health officials have tried to rein in the prescribing of atypical antipsychotics to elderly patients with dementia. The practice has been entirely “off label” yet widespread. The US Food and Drug Administration reports that around 60% of patients with Alzheimer’s dementia in residential care have received an off-label prescription for an antipsychotic, benzodiazepine, antidepressant, or anti-epileptic drug. After a 2005 FDA warning that cited a 60-70% increased risk of death associated with antipsychotic drug use, the US Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services established the National Partnership to Improve Dementia Care in Nursing Homes, a public-private collaboration that sought to “reduce the use of antipsychotics” and “enhance the use of non-pharmacological approaches.”1

But a May 2023 FDA approval of the antipsychotic brexpiprazole for agitation in patients with Alzheimer’s dementia may reverse all of this. At a cost of around $1400 (£1102; €1280) a month, the manufacturers Otsuka and Lundbeck, which jointly brought the “first in class” approval to market, are forecasting an additional $1bn in annual sales of Rexulti.2

Serious questions remain, however, about the harm-benefit balance of Otsuka and Lundbeck’s drug. The drug carries a “boxed warning”—the FDA’s most serious type of warning, informing prescribers of increased mortality. And among four efficacy evaluations across the three prelicensure clinical trials, the highest efficacy observed was a 5.3 point improvement over placebo on a 174 point scale. In the two trials that assessed quality of life, no benefit for either the patient or the caregiver was demonstrated.

“The small benefits do not outweigh serious safety concerns,” said Nina Zeldes, health researcher at the consumer advocacy organisation Public Citizen, addressing the FDA’s advisory committee at its 14 April meeting before the approval.3 “Like other antipsychotics, this is a drug that can kill patients without providing a meaningful benefit.”4

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Tinker Air Force Base deaths: 17 people dead in 2023, military refuses to reveal causes

An Air Force base in Oklahoma is tight-lipped after 17 people have died since the beginning of 2023, with an advocate for military families saying she’d made inquiries about a possible rash of suicides. 

Officials for the Air Force and the base have refused to reveal the nature of the deaths, saying only that there were ‘various causes.’

DailyMail.com has reached out to the base for an explanation or names of the personnel who have died – but officials did not respond in time for this report. 

A number of the deaths are also still ‘under investigation,’ a spokesperson for the base said. A Military.com investigation suggested that ‘they had been informed of deaths connected to base this year including potential suicides.’ 

It’s not clear how many of the deaths were service members or what their role was at the base, which has over 30,000 personnel on site. 

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CDC Altered Minnesota Death Certificates that List a Covid Vaccine as a Cause of Death

Someone (who needs to remain anonymous) was able to obtain the death certificates from Minnesota for all deaths that occurred from 2015 to the present, which presented the opportunity to see if the CDC is being entirely honest about the US death data. Unsurprisingly, the CDC is not.

As we shall document, the CDC is concealing references to a covid vaccine on Minnesota death certificates (that are exceedingly rare to begin with because of widespread medical establishment denialism of vaccine adverse side effects). In almost every death certificate that identifies a covid vaccine as a cause of death, the CDC committed data fraud by not assigning the ICD 10 code for vaccine side effects to the causes of death listed on the death certificate.

Background

When someone dies, there is a death certificate that is filled out for official/legal purposes. Death certificates contain a lot of information (some states include more than others), including the causes of death (CoD).

Causes of death refer to the medical conditions that ultimately played some role in the demise of the decedent. To qualify as a CoD, a condition only needs to contribute to the medical decline of the decedent in some way, but doesn’t have to be directly responsible for whatever ultimately killed the person. If someone had high blood pressure, and subsequently suffered a heart attack that led to cardiac arrest which killed them, all three conditions qualify as CoD. On the other hand, this unfortunate fellow’s ingrown toenail is not a cause of death, because it in no way contributed to their demise.

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Poverty Kills More Americans Than Obesity, Diabetes, and Drug Overdoses, Study Reveals

Poverty kills more Americans than obesity, diabetes, and murders, making it the nation’s fourth leading cause of death, according to a new analysis. A researcher from the University of California-Riverside reports that the only things that kill more people are heart disease, cancer, and smoking.

According to the findings, not earning enough money to meet basic needs contributed to around 183,000 deaths in the United States in 2019 alone. An international team working on this project are now dubbing poverty the “silent killer.”

This is a conservative estimate, scientists note, since the data focused on those over 15 years of age and was collected just prior to the COVID-19 pandemic — which caused spikes in deaths as well as an economic upheaval worldwide.

The researchers defined poverty as earning less than 50 percent of the median U.S. income. Suicides, firearms, homicides, and obesity, diabetes, and drug overdoses, were all less lethal than poverty, according to the study. Impoverished people have roughly the same survival rate until they reach their 40s. After this, they die at significantly high rates than those with more adequate incomes and resources.

Scientists believe their research has major policy implications and urge those in power to pay more attention to the issue. They add that beyond the emotional suffering of bereaved loved ones, death is expensive for a family, community, and government.

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Barack Obama Falsely Claims Guns Are Number One Killer of Children

On Monday evening, former President Barack Obama tweeted his response to the Nashville Christian school shooting by repeating the left’s false claim that guns are the number one killer of children.

On March 23, 2023, Breitbart News reported that actor Billy Porter made the same false claim, screaming that “the leading cause of death in children are guns” during an appearance on ABC’s The View.

Porter’s claim, which is now Obama’s claim as well, became a common one among leftists and non-fact-checking moderates in the summer of 2022 after a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) was widely reported in late May that year.

FOX News ran a story titled “Guns now the leading cause of death for US children, per CDC.” The story noted that CDC figures show firearm-related deaths of people ages 0-19 totaled 4,368 in 2020, while motor vehicle deaths for the same age range totaled 4,036. And during a June 2, 2022, speech, President Joe Biden reacted to the CDC figures by claiming, “Guns are the number one killer of children.”

But Breitbart News dug into the CDC figures and ascertained that the only way to make the claim work is to count 18 and 19-year-olds as children. But if one does a custom search on the CDC website to adjust the category of children to include only those aged 0-17, only those below voting and military age, then the outcome completely flips.

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Investigation into spikes in newborn baby deaths in Scotland

In September 2021 at least 21 babies under four weeks old died, a rate of 4.9 per 1,000 births. And in March at least 18 died, the equivalent of 4.6 per 1,000 births.

Public Health Minister Marie Todd said: “Every death is a tragedy for the families involved, that is why earlier this year I committed to this review to find out if there is a reason for the increase.

“I appreciate how difficult this time is for anyone affected and I would encourage them to access support if they wish to do so.”

She added information about organisations and help was available on the National Bereavement Care Pathways Scotland and Scottish government websites.

Ms Todd said anything identified would feed into recommendations and actions to improve the quality of care for mother and babies.

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The Latest Tragedy: Sudden Adult Death Syndrome

According to the British Heart Association, there are about 500 cases of SADS in the UK each year.5 The British Office for National Statistics, on the other hand, show far fewer cases.6 The ONS lists a total of 128 cases of SADS (all age groups, whether listed as cardiac-related or unknown) in 2016, 77 cases in 2017, 70 in 2018, 107 in 2019 and 139 cases in 2020.

While data on SADS incidence for 2021 and 2022 are hard to come by, incidence has apparently risen sufficiently enough to cause concern in some countries. Before the pandemic, SADS was the acronym for sudden arrhythmia death syndrome, which was rare and with scant research on it except to mention that it accounted for about 30 percent of unexpected cardiac deaths among young people.7

But today, it’s no longer rare and SADS is virtually on steroids as the numbers of sudden deaths in young adults pile up around the world. The numbers are so concerning that in Australia, for example, the Melbourne Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute is setting up a new SADS registry “to gain more information” about the phenomenon.8,9

According to a spokesperson, there are approximately 750 SADS cases per year in Australia. In the U.S., the average annual death toll from SADS is said to be around 4,000.10

Since the rollout of the COVID jabs, the news has been chockful of reports of young, healthy and often athletic people dying “for no reason” and doctors claim to be “baffled” by it. Doctors and scientists in Australia are even urging everyone under the age of 40 to get their hearts checked, even if they’re healthy and fit.11

Any thinking person, on the other hand, can clearly see the correlation between the shots, which are now well-known for their ability to cause heart inflammation, and the rise in sudden death among young and healthy people.

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FDA Chief Claims “Misinformation” is Leading Cause of Death in the United States

During an appearance on CNN, FDA chief Dr. Robert Califf asserted that the leading cause of death in the United States is online “misinformation.”

Yes, really.

Califf spoke about his remarks during an interview with CNN’s Pamela Brown, which were originally made at a health conference in Texas last month when he said online misinformation was “now our leading cause of death.”

After admitting that there was “no way to quantify this,” before mentioning heart disease and cancer (actual killers), Califf went on to bolster the claim anyway.

Claiming that there has been “an erosion of life expectancy,” Califf went on to say that Americans were living an average of 5 years shorter than people in other high income countries.

Califf said that anti-virals and vaccinations meant “almost no one in this country should be dying from COVID,” before going on to explain that there was also a “reduction in life expectancy from common diseases like heart disease.”

“But somehow … the reliable, truthful messages are not getting across,” he said, adding, “And it’s being washed down by a lot of misinformation, which is leading people to make bad choices that are unfortunate for their health.”

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