Carrie Fisher died today. I thought she would recover from her medical problems and live many more years but, alas, she didn't. We still have four more days this year and I expect another celebrity will die before January 1, 2017.
Why are so many celebrities dying? Mathematically, it's simple: It's due to a reduction in life expectancy in the United States. Many people aren't making it to 60 years old any more, and celebrities are included in that. George Michael died recently at the age of 53 and Carrie had just turned 60 a couple of months ago. People are succumbing to cancer, heart disease, drugs (legal as well as illegal), suicide (some caused by repeated concussions) and gun violence.
I am especially appalled at the increase in drug overdoses. I feel that the pharmaceutical companies as well as the doctors are responsible for the increase in overdoses due to painkillers and are making big profits from this. The Charleston Gazette-Mail found that, over the last six years, pharmaceutical companies have shipped 433 pain pills for every man, woman and child in the state of West Virginia. That's a total of 780 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills.
Meanwhile, the people from an earlier era who are now in their 90s, such as Zsa Zsa Gabor, 99, are dying as well. Expect this combination of seemingly large numbers of young and old celebrities dying to continue until the average life expectancy in the United States begins to increase again.
----------
Note: I donated to Wikipedia for the third year in a row during their recent fundraising campaign. They said that if everyone who uses Wikipedia donated just $5 per year, they would reach their goal. I gave a bit more than the average because I'm an above average kind of person!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Well-thought-out comments by intelligent people are encouraged. Other comments will be deleted or not approved. Note that anonymous comments are allowed; feel free to include your handle in your comment.