Biggest fears aside, the Journal of the American Medical Association published a study that uncovered the actual leading causes of death in the United States (in 2000). Overwhelmingly, these causes stem from our own, modifiable behaviors.
- Tobacco (435,000 deaths, 18.1 percent of total U.S. deaths)
- Poor diet and physical inactivity (400,000 deaths, 16.6 percent)
- Alcohol consumption (85,000 deaths, 3.5 percent)
- Microbial agents (75,000)
- Toxic agents (55,000)
- Motor vehicle crashes (43,000)
- Incidents involving firearms (29,000)
- Sexual behaviors (20,000)
- Illicit use of drugs (17,000)
Have a liver? Fear Tylenol. Also, thank the Florida Supreme Court for protecting drug and death dealing "businesses" of cigarette companies. They stated the financial damages would be crippling to the companies ... yet also ruled that cigarette smoking causes the following crippling (and deadly) diseases:
"aortic aneurysm, bladder cancer, cerebrovascular disease, cervical cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, coronary heart disease, esophageal cancer, kidney cancer, laryngeal cancer, lung cancer (specifically, adenocarinoma, large cell carcinoma, small cell carcinoma, and squamous cell carcinoma), complications of pregnancy, oral cavity/tongue cancer, pancreatic cancer, peripheral vascular disease, pharyngeal cancer, and stomach cancer." -newswire
Obviously wealthy companies are today more worthy of protection from "crippling" than are people. This humanizing of corporations is wrong. No corporation has a heart, a lung or a kidney.
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