Given our prehistoric instincts, when a mass murder happens, it drives everyone’s attention. The Gaussian curve has deviations and one of the extremes of the extreme are people who go and shoot a lot of folks (tragic, but hardly preventable, and if preventable, then with high reasonable costs). Local wars (I really don’t mean a global conflict) are also closely watched.
Preventable diseases, which include a wide range of conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, and certain cancers, however, represent a major public health challenge with zero attention scope of people and media:
Cardiovascular disease: 17.9 million deaths per year globally
Cancer: 9.9 million deaths annually
Infectious diseases:
HIV/AIDS: In 2020, an estimated 680,000 people died from HIV-related illnesses worldwide
Tuberculosis: In 2019, approximately 1.4 million people died from tuberculosis globally
Malaria: In 2020, malaria caused an estimated 627,000 deaths, with the majority of deaths occurring in sub-Saharan Africa.
We are just intelligent animals that make distinctions between “us” and “them”, as tribal instincts, and we wage wars that made billions of people dead (105 billion people lived in history). When Joe Biden, then president of the USA, was in Kyiv during the Russo-Ukrainian war, they echoed the Russians before his arrival so no global war could have started (for, example by bomb killing of the POTUS). Because he is the alpha male and killing the head of our tribe would mean nuclear war with Russia that would cause tens of millions of dead. Do you find any rationality in it?
We are tribal animals and “us” and “them” make our scientifically superior weapons highly dangerous to each other (and of, course, “each other” – why not “all of us”).
Those numbers are preventable diseases which means that appropriate financial injections into enlightenment programs (even if trillions – an estimated US$2.6 trillion are stolen annually through corruption in the USA) would make tens of millions alive:
Diet
Physical activity
Tobacco Avoidance
Alcohol Moderation
Regular health check-ups
Preventive medications
Hand hygiene
Safe sex practices
Mental health check-ups
Hydration
Safe food handling
Screenings: follow recommended screenings for conditions such as cancer (mammograms, colonoscopies and so on), diabetes, and heart disease; early detection can lead to more effective treatment
Vaccination
If terrorists or an adverse country killed 1 million Americans, the US would destroy the country to its core. When rational, evidence-based data are available, nothing happens. Let the tens of millions die!
Now finally a misattributed quote: “One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is just a statistic.” Even if Stalin had uttered this, who would think this mass murderer was right?
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