Author Topic: You’re now more likely to die from opioids than in a car crash  (Read 1382 times)

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rangerrebew

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You’re now more likely to die from opioids than in a car crash

Let's put your risk of death into perspective.
By Sara Chodosh January 14, 2019
 

Prescription drugs are some of the most dangerous.
 

The opioid crisis has evolved so rapidly that it can be hard to wrap your head around just how deadly these drugs have become. But 2017 data puts the public health epidemic into perspective: The National Safety Council estimates that opioids are more likely to kill the average American than a car crash is.

It's the first time in the history of the NSC's risk analysis that this has happened. Car crash rates have generally gone down over the decades, and as opioid overdoses have skyrocketed, the two were likely to cross over at some point. But it may still be surprising to learn that prescription pills are more dangerous than speeding along at 50 miles per hour in a two-ton metal box. As Ken Kolosh, manager of statistics at the NSC told NPR, "As human beings, we're terrible at assessing our own risk. We typically focus on the unusual or scary events ... and assume that those are the riskiest."

https://www.popsci.com/opioid-death-car-crash-odds
« Last Edit: January 19, 2019, 05:47:40 pm by rangerrebew »

Online Cyber Liberty

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Re: You’re now more likely to die from opioids than in a car crash
« Reply #1 on: January 19, 2019, 06:00:29 pm »
Typical PopSci story.  I have always been suspicious of these "You are more likely to die from X than you are from Y" stories.  They always fail to account for self-imposed risk factors.

Someone tells me, "You are more likely to die in a car crash than an airplane crash."  This is ridiculous, of course I am.  Duh.  I never fly anymore.  I impose upon myself the greater risk, it's not like I'm waiting around for some giant arcade claw to drop from the sky and pick me out of the pile of toys.
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Offline Sanguine

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Re: You’re now more likely to die from opioids than in a car crash
« Reply #2 on: January 19, 2019, 06:00:42 pm »
"Popsci" indeed.  Since I don't do opioids but do drive a car, I am much less likely to die of opioids.

Offline Victoria33

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Re: You’re now more likely to die from opioids than in a car crash
« Reply #3 on: January 19, 2019, 06:07:55 pm »
@Cyber Liberty

I am not surprised at this finding.  If the numbers were checked further, one would likely find it is elderly people who die from not being sharp enough to take these pills, and the number of them, at doctor directed times.

A doctor can't go home with these elderly people to make sure the right number of pills are being taken at safe times.

When I go to the ortho/pain specialist, the waiting room is full of elderly patients, usually in wheelchairs or walkers - only a few patients look to be in their younger years.

On my last visit about three weeks ago, there was an elderly woman by herself who talked to me, and she was going to get a shot for her lower back, where they put her to sleep to do it.  She started asking me questions because she was afraid of having bad pain after the shot.  Where was the doctor who should have told her this shot was not going to be painful when she woke up?  I wish I could have gone with her to calm her. Is she with it enough to take her pills right?

Every pill I take for whatever, is put in a holder for each day so I know I took them, or forgot to take them, and took the correct dose at each time of the day.  I fill it once a week and it's done until the next week.

How do you here make sure your pill taking is right?
« Last Edit: January 19, 2019, 06:08:49 pm by Victoria33 »

Online The_Reader_David

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Re: You’re now more likely to die from opioids than in a car crash
« Reply #4 on: January 19, 2019, 06:09:29 pm »
Re:  the headline.  No. I'm not.

A randomly selected American is more likely to die of opioids than from a car crash.  But like me, unless the reader is already afflicted with chronic pain, works in a job at which an injury which results in chronic pain is likely, or already uses illegal drugs other than marijuana, the "you" to whom the article is addressed is also more likely to die of a car crash.

My remark is intended to make a serious point about the mis-application of statistics.  The headline, like people taking offense at the observation that ability distributions are different between different human populations, or justifying their prejudices on the basis of the same observation, is based on mis-applying population statistics to individuals.  As Bayes observed, all probability is conditional probability.  The stupidity of applying population statistics to individuals is just an egregious, though popular, failure to understand Bayes's point in making that remark.
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Re: You’re now more likely to die from opioids than in a car crash
« Reply #5 on: January 20, 2019, 05:29:10 am »
@Cyber Liberty

I am not surprised at this finding.  If the numbers were checked further, one would likely find it is elderly people who die from not being sharp enough to take these pills, and the number of them, at doctor directed times.

A doctor can't go home with these elderly people to make sure the right number of pills are being taken at safe times.

When I go to the ortho/pain specialist, the waiting room is full of elderly patients, usually in wheelchairs or walkers - only a few patients look to be in their younger years.

On my last visit about three weeks ago, there was an elderly woman by herself who talked to me, and she was going to get a shot for her lower back, where they put her to sleep to do it.  She started asking me questions because she was afraid of having bad pain after the shot.  Where was the doctor who should have told her this shot was not going to be painful when she woke up?  I wish I could have gone with her to calm her. Is she with it enough to take her pills right?

Every pill I take for whatever, is put in a holder for each day so I know I took them, or forgot to take them, and took the correct dose at each time of the day.  I fill it once a week and it's done until the next week.

How do you here make sure your pill taking is right?
LMAO at this, I just got thru bringing my 87 year old mother home from a four day hospital stay due to falls which the best explanation for their cause is that a medication her doctor recently prescribed has a well known interaction with her imitation Opioid, Tramadol that cause Vertigo and muscle weakness resulting in falls. We were just lucky that she is will tolerate a very high rate of pain before taking her Tramadol or it would have happened sooner. So I think there is a higher problem of doctors not doing due diligence for their patients.
« Last Edit: January 20, 2019, 05:29:44 am by GtHawk »

Offline truth_seeker

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Re: You’re now more likely to die from opioids than in a car crash
« Reply #6 on: January 20, 2019, 07:11:37 am »

My remark is intended to make a serious point about the mis-application of statistics. 

My father, a fairly successful, moderately well self-educated but intellectually curious guy, informed me that the average human being, had one teat, and one testicle.


A great many people in America are not well educated, regarding statistics and probability, or logic either.


Political conservatives, do not avoid that weakness. 
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Offline Smokin Joe

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Re: You’re now more likely to die from opioids than in a car crash
« Reply #7 on: January 20, 2019, 08:11:58 am »
Re:  the headline.  No. I'm not.

A randomly selected American is more likely to die of opioids than from a car crash.  But like me, unless the reader is already afflicted with chronic pain, works in a job at which an injury which results in chronic pain is likely, or already uses illegal drugs other than marijuana, the "you" to whom the article is addressed is also more likely to die of a car crash.

My remark is intended to make a serious point about the mis-application of statistics.  The headline, like people taking offense at the observation that ability distributions are different between different human populations, or justifying their prejudices on the basis of the same observation, is based on mis-applying population statistics to individuals.  As Bayes observed, all probability is conditional probability.  The stupidity of applying population statistics to individuals is just an egregious, though popular, failure to understand Bayes's point in making that remark.

Precisely. The same statistical abuse is often applied to firearms and other potentially dangerous things.
No reason for me to panic about opiods, as I seldom take so much as an aspirin (I really have to be hurting to go that far).
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Offline Smokin Joe

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Re: You’re now more likely to die from opioids than in a car crash
« Reply #8 on: January 20, 2019, 08:13:46 am »
My father, a fairly successful, moderately well self-educated but intellectually curious guy, informed me that the average human being, had one teat, and one testicle.


A great many people in America are not well educated, regarding statistics and probability, or logic either.


Political conservatives, do not avoid that weakness.
He left out the ovary.

Innumeracy is a weakness to be avoided.
How God must weep at humans' folly! Stand fast! God knows what he is doing!
Seventeen Techniques for Truth Suppression

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

C S Lewis