Tag: causes of death

Opioids More Likely To Kill Than Car Crashes Or Suicide

The National Safety Council reports that Americans are more likely to die from an opioid overdose than a car crash or suicide.

As Statista’;s Katharina Buchholz shows in the following chart, the likelihood of dying from opioid use in the U.S. increased from lifetime odds of one in 96 in 2017 to one in 57 in 2023 (down from one in 55 in 2022).

The same year, someone living in the U.S. only had one in 87 odds of dying of suicide and a one in 95 chance of dying in a car crash.

Potent and deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl – which is often mixed with heroin without the knowledge of drug users – contributed to this dismal development together with the ongoing crisis of prescription pain killer misuse.

The U.S. experienced 105,000 overdose deaths in 2023, down from 2022 after a severe uptick during the coronavirus pandemic.

The most likely cause of death in the U.S. continues to be heart disease with lifetime odds of 1 in 6, followed by cancer and stroke.

Covid-19 lifetime odds were similar to those of stroke in previous years, but are no longer reported by the source.

Despite being a common fear, the chances of dying due to gun assault stand at only one in 238, but are still greater than drowning or choking to death, which have odds of around one in 1,000 and one in 2,500, respectively.

Dying in a dog attack remains highly unlikely with the chances of that happening at one in 44,499.

Dying in a hurricane or tornado or any other storm event is actually more likely at one in 39,192.

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Same Excess Death Patterns in Multiple Data Sets after mRNA Vaccine Rollouts

This article is based on the painstaking and meticulous work of intrepid researcher and Substack writer csofand. I will refer to him as “the researcher,” as he prefers to remain anonymous.

I am also grateful for the assistance of citizen researcher/journalist Benjamin Marten, who generously shared his VAERS data queries and results with me.

Why am I writing about excess mortality associated with Covid mRNA vaccines?

Recently, I was talking to some friends about various Covid topics and casually mentioned deaths and disabilities associated with the mRNA vaccines, as documented by the company that made them. My friends, who are somewhat open to Covid skepticism but have not explored the subject very thoroughly, and are still ensconced in the corporate media bubble, were taken aback. “You mean people died from the vaccines?” they asked incredulously.

Which, for me, raised the question: How can we still be arguing about this?

I hope the information compiled here can help put an end to the question of whether or not Covid mRNA vaccines harm and kill people.

What Is “Excess Mortality”?

According to Wikipedia, excess mortality is an epidemiological term that means “the increase in the number of deaths during a time period and/or in a certain group, as compared to the expected value or statistical trend during a reference period (typically of five years) or in a reference population.”

Simply put, it means more deaths than expected based on previous trends and future projections. As it relates to Covid-19, starting very early in 2020, a major topic of concern became how much excess mortality was caused by the disease (whether or not the disease actually caused a lot of excess mortality is a separate issue). After 2020, with near universal exposure to the novel coronavirus, and the rollout of a global vaccination campaign, excess mortality was expected to go back down. Instead, it increased.

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Child advocate blames Democrat governor for 6th child death related to family safety dept: ‘There is blood on the governor’

The tragic death of another child in New Mexico has prompted a child advocate to blame the governor and the children’s safety agency that had been warned about the threat.

Vanessa Chavez was charged with child abuse resulting in death after her 18-month-old daughter was found unresponsive and died after 20 minutes of CPR, Albuquerque police said. The girl’s death is the sixth in only four months of incidents that involved the state’s Children, Youth & Families Department, according to KOB-TV.

New Mexico Child First Network founder Maralyn Beck said the death was preventable and places the blame squarely on the governor as well as the child safety agency.

“Every single one of these deaths was preventable,” Beck said to KOB.

She added: “This is on the governor. There is blood on the governor at this point.”

The child had been taken away from Chavez when she was born premature because the girl had been drug-exposed. KOB reports that the girl was returned to the parents for a trial period and died soon afterward.

“One call to child protective services in a functioning system should save the life of a child,” an emotional Beck said. “One single call. That’s a functioning system, and we don’t have that.”

KOB put the criticism to Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, and she said that it would be a priority for her office as she nears the end of her term but admitted that the agency had troubles.

“You’re chasing your tail, and we’ve been chasing our tail for decades,” she said.

When asked if she was going to make progress in the 18 months she has left, she responded, “We’re gonna make some damn important progress, yes sir.”

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California Hospital Concealed Evidence Linking ‘Catastrophic Surge’ in Stillbirths to COVID Vaccine, Lawsuit Alleges

A California hospital concealed data linking a “catastrophic surge” in stillbirths among women who received COVID-19 vaccines, according to a lawsuit filed last week in the Superior Court of California, Fresno County.

Michelle Spencer, a nurse at Community Medical Centers’ (CMC) Community Regional Medical Center, said the hospital “deliberately and selectively” concealed from staff, patients and regulators a spike in unborn baby deaths that began in spring 2021, and retaliated against her when she publicized the information.

The lawsuit also says the hospital concealed medical data related to the fetal deaths that showed a link to COVID-19 vaccination of pregnant mothers.

The data include hospital-wide medical records documenting the number of stillbirths and the vaccination histories of those babies’ mothers. One managing nurse at the hospital told a staff member that nearly all of the stillbirths occurred among vaccinated mothers.

According to the complaint, Spencer “witnessed firsthand the exponential increase in unborn baby deaths directly correlating with pregnant women who received a Covid vaccine and then would deliver a dead baby a close number of days or weeks following their injection.”

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Opening Legal Marijuana Dispensaries Is Tied To A Huge Drop In Opioid-Related Deaths, Analysis Finds

Counties that have marijuana dispensaries see an average of 30 percent fewer opioid-related deaths compared to counties without legal cannabis shops open, suggesting a substitution effect away from prescription pills and heroin toward the plant-based treatment, according to a new data analysis.

In a Washington Post piece on Wednesday, Harvard University economics student Julien Berman used data from the University of Michigan that identifies dispensary locations at the county level to compare opioid overdose trends over 10 years in jurisdictions where cannabis became legally available compared to those without regulated access.

“The theory is straightforward: making cannabis more available—and reducing its cost—could induce people to shift from opioids, which are super dangerous, to marijuana, a significantly safer alternative,” Berman said. “Existing opioid users seeking pain relief can choose marijuana instead of heroin, especially in counties where recreational use is legal and access is easy. And new potential users might never turn to opioids at all if they could get marijuana instead.”

Other factors were taken into account to support the conclusion, including comparisons of opioid mortality rates in counties within a legal state where some allow retailers to operate and others have chosen to opt out.

“That kind of variation helps rule out other state-level changes such as expanded access to naloxone—a drug that can reverse the effects of an overdose—as the main cause of the drop in deaths,” Berman said.

On average, the opioid death rates following the establishment of cannabis dispensaries declined more sharply in the immediate years after the opening compared to dry counties. But from years five to 10, there’s a more precipitous effect, with an average rate of 27 percent fewer opioid deaths in jurisdictions that have cannabis storefronts after a decade.

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Children in America 80 Percent More Likely to Die Than Children in Other Industrialized Countries

The United States is confronting a growing pediatric health crisis, with mounting evidence pointing to a decline in children’s overall health and wellbeing. A recent study revealed that children in the U.S. are dying at significantly higher rates than their peers in other high-income nations, underscoring the severity of the issue.1 2

The cross-sectional study was published last month in the Journal of the American Medical Association and found that from 2007 to 2023, U.S. children were 80 percent more likely to die than their peers in other high-income countries. The sources covered at least a decade of data, and the researchers analyzed hundreds of millions of health records from five nationally representative surveys and electronic health records.

Co-author of the children health study Chris Forrest, MD, PhD said that what is particularly frustrating is that the majority of the health problems and deaths occurring among children living in the U.S. are avoidable. Dr. Forrest also said the results were applicable to the total pediatric population and were not dependent upon socioeconomic status.1 3

For infants, the study cites premature birth, sudden infant death syndrome, and congenital anomalies as drivers of mortality. For children ages one to 19, causes of death were largely due to firearms, vehicle accidents, substance abuse, and homicide.3

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“Not As Safe As We Think”: Lidocaine Deaths Nearly Triple Over Past Decade

Poisonings and deaths linked to the common local anesthetic lidocaine have nearly tripled in the United States over the past decade, with fatal overdoses increasingly occurring outside hospitals, where untrained staff administer the supposedly “safe” anesthetic, a new analysis shows.

Over-the-counter topical lidocaine products, which typically contain up to 4 percent to 5 percent lidocaine, are primarily used for temporary relief of pain, itching, and burning sensations. The pain reliever is available in various forms, including creams, ointments, gels, sprays, patches, and foaming soaps. However, in medical settings, it can pose risks that many people may not be aware of.

“Lidocaine is not as safe as we think,” Dr. Michael Fettiplace, study author and assistant professor at the University of Illinois Chicago College of Medicine, told The Epoch Times.

Increase Seen from 2011 to 2022

A recent study, published in Regional Anesthesia & Pain Medicine, reveals a trend hidden within America’s medical system. While overall poisonings from local anesthetics dropped 23 percent after 2010—when medical organizations issued new safety guidelines—lidocaine cases bucked the trend.

Among the risks associated with the drug, lidocaine can cause systemic toxicity when introduced into the bloodstream at high levels. This condition, known as local anesthetic systemic toxicity, primarily affects the central nervous system and cardiovascular system, potentially leading to seizures, arrhythmias, and even cardiac arrest.

Fettiplace’s team had documented increasing toxicity cases in medical literature, but underestimated how often those cases proved fatal. “We identified a rise in mortality events associated with lidocaine, which was unexpected,” he said. “In retrospect, it is not surprising.”

The study analyzed more than 200,000 poisoning cases reported to U.S. poison control centers between 1983 and 2022, including 74 deaths from local anesthetics.

While deaths from other anesthetics declined, the proportion of fatalities linked to lidocaine rose from 67 percent in 2010 to 82 percent in recent years. Overall, 0.1 percent of lidocaine poisoning cases resulted in death, compared with 0.01 percent for other local anesthetics.

In absolute numbers, reports of lidocaine poisoning jumped more than 50 percent, from 1,600 cases in 2016 to 2,500 in 2021.

Many of the deaths occurred after the patient overdosed on lidocaine themselves or received an overdose in outpatient settings.

One case described a 70-year-old man going into cardiac arrest and dying after being administered a 2 percent lidocaine solution. He had undergone an outpatient cardiac magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan, and instead of having the MRI dye flushed with normal saline, he was given lidocaine instead.

While poisonings occurred across all age and gender demographics, cases occurred most frequently at home, Fettiplace noted.

The study described one case in which a man inhaled imported lidocaine powder from China to treat his gastroesophageal reflux disease and became unconscious.

“Undoubtedly, there is underreporting,” Fettiplace said. “I cannot predict an upper limit of the increase.”

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Hospitals Turned Into Killing Centers During Pandemic — Will We Learn From the Mistakes?

When historians one day sift through the wreckage of the COVID-19 pandemic, the central question won’t be how many lives the virus claimed. It will be: how many were lost to a system that collapsed into fear, censorship and fatal conformity?

At TrialSite News, we chronicled the crisis as it unfolded. We reported — early, relentlessly, and despite immense pushback — that the majority of COVID-19 infections were mild to moderate.

Peer-reviewed research later affirmed what we knew by spring 2020: roughly 90–95% of infections did not require hospitalization, and those at real risk were predominantly the elderly or chronically ill.

Even Bill Gates eventually admitted the fatality rate was relatively low and the disease pattern was akin to the flu. Just think of the implications.

But public health leaders didn’t follow the data — they followed panic and centralized narrative control promulgated by a confluence of government, industry and academia. And the price was paid in hospital wards across America.

A misdiagnosed disease met with misguided protocols

Ventilators became the instrument of tragedy. Early guidance — mirroring protocols from China — promoted rapid intubation. In New York’s spring 2020 surge, nearly nine out of 10 intubated patients died.

Though that number softened as more data emerged, the damage was done. Hospitals, misreading COVID pneumonia as typical ARDS, deployed invasive mechanical ventilation far too aggressively.

Patients with “silent hypoxia” — low oxygen but no distress — were sedated and intubated when non-invasive oxygen support might have sufficed.

What followed was a cascade of preventable deaths: ventilator-associated pneumonia, sedation complications, ICU delirium and multi-organ failure. We heard the stories. We saw the data. Too many walked in with breathlessness and left in body bags. It was a tragic disaster.

This wasn’t just clinical failure; it was bureaucratic blindness and potential criminality. Across hospital systems, the practice of “homogenized care” erased the art of medicine in favor of algorithmic treatment pathways.

Individual patient context vanished. And families — banned from the bedside — couldn’t intervene.

The forgotten treatments — cheap, effective, ignored

As thousands perished under sedation, treatments that could have helped were either dismissed or demonized. The RECOVERY trial in June 2020 showed that dexamethasone — a low-cost steroid — cut deaths by one-third in ventilated patients.

But months had already passed. Why didn’t we try anti-inflammatory therapies sooner?

Remember the ICAM protocol TrialSite reported on? Early on in the pandemic, a pharmacist for a southern health system was saving lives with a combination of steroids, blood thinners and the like. Yet this was shut down, we were told to due to a Pfizer contract with the health system.

Meanwhile, the government rushed emergency use approval for remdesivir, a drug that shortened hospital stays but did not reduce mortality — and carried notable toxicity risks. The opportunity cost was tragic. Time and attention were stolen from better solutions.

Frontline doctors proposing repurposed drugs like ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine, in carefully designed early protocols, were silenced or sanctioned.

TrialSite News, remember, scooped ivermectin itself, then gave these doctors a platform — from Peter McCullough to Pierre Kory-publishing observational data, real-world insights and field-tested regimens.

But the Dr. Anthony Fauci-led National Institutes of Health dismissed outpatient care entirely. Americans were told to stay home, take nothing and seek help only once they couldn’t breathe. For many, that was too late.

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Into the Abyss: How Bad Can the Covid Vaccine Story Get?

All Brownstone readers know that the Covid vaccines should never have been mandatory and should never have been prescribed to children or pregnant women, groups for which they were not tested. All of us have been alarmed to see stories of surprisingly many sudden heart failures, turbo cancers, and failed pregnancies in the days and months following the rollout of these shots.

How bad can it be? What is the worst estimate of the impact of the Covid vaccines on the count of living humans for which there is both some degree of empirical evidence and biological plausibility? Let us look into the heart of darkness and consider the worst.

Domain 1: Worldwide Excess Deaths

The principal source for global mortality data is the United Nations World Population Prospects, which at the time of writing had not been updated with a definitive number for 2024. We therefore only use data through 2023. Below we plot the total number of deaths in the world since 1950, and add to that a projection of the 10-year trend before 2020 through to 2023 (shown in the graph below as a red line). The numbers reveal that yearly death counts change fairly smoothly over time, except when humans do something stupid like the Great Leap Forward of 1958-1962, which corresponds to the previous big spike in world deaths evident on the graph and which has been estimated to have cost the lives of around 45 million people.

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Air Force command pauses M18 pistol use after airman’s death at Wyoming base

The U.S. Air Force Global Strike Command has paused the use of a handgun following the death of a Security Forces airman at a base in Wyoming.

The use of the M18 pistol, a variant of another gun that has been the target of lawsuits over unintentional discharge allegations, was paused Monday “until further notice” following the “tragic incident” Sunday at F.E. Warren Air Force Base in Cheyenne, the command said in a statement. Security Forces airmen at all command bases “will conduct 100% inspections of the M18 handguns to identify any immediate safety concerns,” it said.

The airman killed was Brayden Lovan, 21, of the 90th Security Forces Squadron, 90th Missile Wing at the base, where he began his first active-duty assignment in November 2023, base officials said Thursday.

Details of what happened are not being released pending an investigation, said Lt. Raegan Lockhart, public affairs officer for the 90th Missile Wing. How long the investigation might take isn’t known, Lockhart added.

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