3 ms·

> What I find fascinating and disappointing is how much the opioid crisis isn't being talked about or addressed proportional to other societal issues. Actually

> What I find fascinating and disappointing is how much the opioid crisis isn't being talked about or addressed proportional to other societal issues. Actually, it is the opposite. Gun violence, opioid crisis, etc are given too much attention. The deaths of opioid crisis and gun deaths are minuscule compared to the deaths cause by obesity, sedentary lifestyle, cancer, heart disease, etc. Take the top two killers in america - heart disease and cancer ( about 600K deaths each ) vs gun violence + opioid crisis ( about 30K each ). Heart disease by itself kill 10X more people than gun violence and opioid crisis combined.

dehue 9y ago
I believe at least one of the reasons why those are given more attention is because they are more likely to affect younger people and they seem more preventable. As opposed to cancer and heart disease which are more likely to kill older people and often develop over a lifetime.
- cmurphycode 9y ago
  Yeah, I think that's definitely part of it. https://www.heart.org/idc/groups/heart-public/@wcm/@sop/@smd/documents/downloadable/ucm_449846.pdf https://www.heart.org/idc/groups/heart-public/@wcm/@sop/@smd... http://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/opioid-overdose-deaths-by-age-group/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%2225-34%22,%22sort%22:%22desc%22%7D http://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/opioid-overdose-dea...
averagewall 9y ago
Everybody dies from something so there'll always be a top cause of death. I think we accept diseases of old age like heart disease and cancer as an inevitable part of being human. Sure it'd be nice to cure them. It'd also be nice to have immortality. You could go further and say brain death is the leading cause of death, affecting 100% of Americans. Let's put more effort into transferring our consciousness into computers so we can survive it! Again, it would be nice but seems tolerable to carry on as we are.
nyolfen 9y ago
i find it difficult to believe anyone could believe that the negative health effects of obesity and cancer in particular are under-reported

dehue 9y ago

I believe at least one of the reasons why those are given more attention is because they are more likely to affect younger people and they seem more preventable. As opposed to cancer and heart disease which are more likely to kill older people and often develop over a lifetime.

cmurphycode 9y ago
Yeah, I think that's definitely part of it. https://www.heart.org/idc/groups/heart-public/@wcm/@sop/@smd/documents/downloadable/ucm_449846.pdf https://www.heart.org/idc/groups/heart-public/@wcm/@sop/@smd... http://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/opioid-overdose-deaths-by-age-group/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel=%7B%22colId%22:%2225-34%22,%22sort%22:%22desc%22%7D http://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/opioid-overdose-dea...

averagewall 9y ago

Everybody dies from something so there'll always be a top cause of death. I think we accept diseases of old age like heart disease and cancer as an inevitable part of being human. Sure it'd be nice to cure them. It'd also be nice to have immortality. You could go further and say brain death is the leading cause of death, affecting 100% of Americans. Let's put more effort into transferring our consciousness into computers so we can survive it! Again, it would be nice but seems tolerable to carry on as we are.

nyolfen 9y ago

i find it difficult to believe anyone could believe that the negative health effects of obesity and cancer in particular are under-reported