Paul Eres (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} rinku) wrote,@ 2008-03-13 16:04:00 |
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| Entry tags: | health |
(A) The number of physicians in the U.S. is 700,000.
(B) Accidental deaths caused by Physicians per year are 120,000.
(C) Accidental deaths per physician is 0.171.
(A) The number of gun owners in the U.S. is 80,000,000.
Yes, that is 80 million.
(B) The number of accidental gun deaths per year, all age groups, is 1,500.
(C) The number of accidental deaths per gun owner is 0.000188.
Statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than gun owners. (taken from here)
They seemed to intend that as a defense of gun ownership but I think it's really more of a condemnation of doctors. It's pretty scary that almost one in five doctors will kill someone accidentally.
Note that this doesn't include things like trying to save someone and failing, it means just accidental deaths, like mistakenly performing a surgury on person A instead of person B, or stuff like mixing up medical prescriptions; easily avoidable things. Remember the woman who went to a hospital to give birth, and woke up without arms or legs, and the hospital refused to tell her why?
