# How valid are these statistics? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [June 29, 2001, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-valid-are-these-statistics/70663 "2001-06-29T22:55:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mighty\_maxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/2acd7d/32.png) [@mighty\_maxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mighty_maxx)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2001, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-valid-are-these-statistics/70663/1 "2001-06-29T22:55:50Z")
I had someone e-mail me the excerpt I’ll leave below today. I have no idea where it originated. I know its meant to be a “Ha take that!” responce to the recent AMA push for more strict gun laws. Has anyone known these numbers to actually exist, or are they made up just to try to make a point (though not a very productive one)? I looked around some and couldn’t find anything like it. > [@](#): > > 1. Number of physicians in the US: 700,000. > 2. Accidental deaths caused by physicians per year: 120,000. > 3. Accidental deaths per physician… 0.171 (U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services) > 4. Number of gun owners in the US: 80,000,000. > 5. Number of accidental gun deaths per year (all age groups): 1,500. > 6. Accidental deaths per gun owner: 0.0000188. > 7. Statistically, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more > dangerous than gun owners. > > Note: Not everyone has a gun, but everyone has at least one Doctor. > Please alert your friends to this alarming threat. We must ban doctors > before this gets out of hand. So, remember guns don’t kill people, > > doctors > do ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Zero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c4cdca/32.png) [@Saint\_Zero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Zero)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2001, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-valid-are-these-statistics/70663/2 "2001-06-29T23:05:59Z")
What was it Mark Twain said? “There are lie, damn lies, and statistics.” I’ll stand by his wisdom anytime someone brings up a cutesy bit of wit like this. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2001, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-valid-are-these-statistics/70663/3 "2001-06-29T23:19:44Z")
here’s some data on accidental deaths in the year 1999 which shows 1134 accidental deaths by firearms, and 2929 from medical procedures (the latter number being significantly less than in your little email). Of course, there’s the other factor of how many gun deaths vs. deaths by physicians, too . Accidental wouldn’t include, murder or suicides, would be the basic gun dropped, it went off and killed some one, **maybe** and I don’t have any evidence to suggest either way, it’d also include the kid finds a gun and shoots their baby brother with it, but maybe not, depending on how the medical examiner classified the death. (for example, my ex brother in law - one of 'em anyhow- shot and killed a woman during firearm deer season. He certainly didn’t intend to kill her, she was just chopping down a Christmas tree. Her death was not classified as an accident, it was a homicide, for which he served a whole year in the county jail). ---
**Author:** ![panamajack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/47e85d/32.png) [@panamajack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panamajack)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2001, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-valid-are-these-statistics/70663/4 "2001-06-30T00:11:39Z")
Obviously, this sort of claim is flawed on many grounds – the most glaring is that ‘accident’ in the doctor’s case refers to the performing of a job where an accident will very often mean death, and one in which death can occur even when the doctor thinks he or she is performing well. Whereas most gun accidents are due to mishandling, not being used every day in a dangerous job. (One assumes. I don’t know if their statistics would include police, criminals, or soldiers who kill accidentally. It probably is not a huge difference, since the vast majority of gun owners are not in this category.) If you really want to annoy your friends, distribute something just as silly like : "Intentional deaths due to doctors in the US per year (Kevorkian’s in jail so … 0) Intentional deaths due to guns in the US per year (1999 data) : 27,391 (\>16,000 suicides, \>10,000 homicides) source : [http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr49/nvsr49\_03.pdf](http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr49/nvsr49_03.pdf) pg. 16" The above report also gives 832 as accidental discharge of firearm deaths, plus about 300 or so of undetermined intent, which could go in any category. I figure 5 minutes of research is more time than was spent by the writers, so I started at the [AMA website](http://www.ama-assn.org) Actual number of physicians in the US as of 1999 was closer to 800,000. I’ll guess there’s somewhat under a million by now. The major study on medical errors that seems to be the most talked-about is the Institute of Medicine’s report on medical errors causing deaths in hospitals. The results were 98,000 deaths in 1984 (based on New York) and 44,000 deaths in 1991 (based on Colorado and Utah). The Dept of Health & Human Services uses this report’s findings in its recently released [fact sheet](http://www.hhs.gov/news/press/2001pres/01fsMedErrors.html) . So the number in the e-mail is likely high, but _maybe_ order of magnitude close. To get a better value, you’d need to consider : … these deaths are due to hospitals, not doctors per se. … the number of deaths was possibly declining during and/or after the period of study. … there were fewer doctors during the period of study than there are now.