I’ll be talking to 60 women tomorrow about my favorite topic: nutrition. Was asked to speak by one of the women who has previously attended my class, Your Body’s Grace.
In preparation, I decided to include statistics regarding number of fatal deaths caused by chronic disease (the exact type of deaths directly affected by nutrition, or lack of).
Next I looked up number of automobile fatalities. And lastly, I compared the budgets of the two government agencies responsible for disease prevention, and prevention of auto deaths.
Here are my very disturbing results (and please note that my data comes directly from government information available on the web):
Traffic Deaths (most current numbers available are from 2011) =
32,300 persons.
The National Highway Traffic and Safety Administration proposed budget for 2013 = $981 million ($981,000,000).
Thus we spend approximately $30,370 for each traffic death in USA.
Chronic Disease Deaths (most current numbers available are from 2010) =
1,513,000 persons. I’ve detailed this number below:
598,000 persons died from cardiac disease
575,000 persons died from cancer
138,000 persons died from chronic respiratory disease
(e.g. COPD)
130,000 persons died from stroke
83,000 persons died from Alzheimer’s Disease
69,000 persons died from diabetes
50,000 persons died from renal disease
total: 1,513,000 deaths from chronic (preventable) disease
The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention proposed budget for 2013 =
$11.2 billion ($11,200,000,000).
Thus we spend approximately $7,400 for each chronic disease death.
We’re spending 4.1 x more for each traffic death compared to each preventable death.
For chronic disease prevention, we spend less than a quarter of what we spend for traffic fatalities.
Traffic deaths equal only 2% of our chronic disease deaths, yet we spend over 4 times as much money for traffic death prevention.
Something is very very rotten in Denmark (the U.S.A.).
"TAKE NOTHING FOR GRANTED, AND YOUR HEART WILL ALWAYS BE FULL."