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Alcohol - Alcohol-induced causes exclude accidents, homicides, and other causes indirectly related to alcohol use. This category also excludes newborn deaths associated with maternal alcohol use. Why is this drug legal? Why are other drugs illegal?
Bite of other animal except arthropod - This code captures deaths due to cats, moray eels, sharks, and rodents other than rats. No, I am not making this up.
Boarding or Alighting From Motor Vehicle - That's right, these people died getting on or off a bus, falling from their stationary vehicle, or getting jammed in a bus door. Deaths from this cause doubled between 1991 and 1995 -- where's the outrage? Once, again, I am not making this up.
Cannabis - Yep, there really are people whose official "underlying cause of death" has been attributed to their use of cannabis. Of course, more people have died from just about anything you can think of and none of these deaths were the result of toxic conditions caused by cannabis -- they are all classed as mental disorders involving cannabis (ICD-9 code 304.3 - Drug Dependence and ICD-9 code 305.2 - Nondependent Abuse).
Dizziness & giddiness - Is it possible that someone laughed themselves to death? Perhaps if they were high on marijuana. But then the death would be recorded as drug-induced, wouldn't it? If not, let this be a warning to you kids -- smoking pot makes people laugh, at times uncontrollably. If you smoke pot, you run the risk of laughing yourself to death.
Drowning in Bathtub - Yes, a large number of these deaths are infants and children left unattended, but 67 percent of them happened to those aged 15 or older.
Drug-Induced - This category includes everything under the sun. Although the US Office of National Drug Control Policy uses drug-induced deaths as a reason to wage war on your fellow citizens, in actuality only 21 percent of these deaths are due to the use of illegal drugs. Drug-induced causes exclude accidents, homicides, and other causes indirectly related to drug use. Also excluded are newborn deaths associated with mother’s drug use -- 41 deaths over the 20 years.
Flatulence - It is unclear from CDC reporting as to whether these folks were victimized by their own gas (which is indeed covered by 787.3), or if some other person lauched an unprovoked SBD attack in their vicinity. In most cases of foreign SBD, the proper coding would be 799.0 (asphyxia) or perhaps 869.9 (accidental poisoning by unspecified gases and vapors).
Glue Sniffing - This code is intended to be used for people seeking mental health help with an absinthe addiction or glue sniffing problem. It is possible to asphixiate when using inhalants, but these deaths are coded as being mental health related.
Hallucinogens - The majority of these deaths (81 percent) are attributed to "accidental poisoning."
Illegal Drugs - Although the US drug czar's office likes to tally all "drug-induced" deaths as related to illegal drug use, the reality is that only 21 percent of those deaths were due to the use of illegal drugs. See for yourself.
Malignant Melanoma of Skin - Yes, these are deaths from skin cancer. Let's think about this for a moment, shall we. Skin cancers cause nearly three times as many deaths as all illegal drugs combined. Why don't we have pre-dawn, no knock warrantless searches of random homes to see if they have sunscreen? Why don't we jail those sporting a tan or a sunburn? Shouldn't we charge people with child abuse if their children get sunburned?
Obesity - These are not deaths due to the long term effects of poor diet and lack of exercise; they are deaths due to flat out weighing too much.
Other Burning - This is a sub-category of all fire induced deaths not caused by buildings on fire or burning clothing. Specifically, this sub-category of fire deaths are those attributed to burning by: blowlamp, blowtorch, candle, cigar, cigarette, lamp, lighter, matches, pipe or welding torch.
Other Explosions of Pressure Vessels - These are deaths due to explosions of aerosol cans, automobile tires and pressure cookers. When will we remove these dangerous items from our world?
Other Hand Tools and Implements - Mom always said "don't run with scissors," and this is why. Other dangerous implements in this category include chisels, forks, needles, rakes, screwdrivers and shovels. It's dangerous out there I tell ya!
Other Powered Hand Tools - included in this category are deaths due to any powered hand tool such as drills, saws, hedge clippers and rivet guns. Use the buddy sytem. Also note that these are accidental deaths only. Homicide by cutting or piercing instruments is coded as 966.
Other Specified Injury Caused by Animal - These deaths were not caused during the riding of an animal, but are instead all cases of being: butted by an animal, fallen on by an animal not being ridden, gored by an animal, being implanted with quills from a porcupine, being pecked by a bird, or run over or stepped on by an animal not being ridden. Clearly animals are dangerous and should be illegal.
Other Special Symptoms and Syndromes - This one really takes the cake. This ICD code is intended for coding mental health treatment, although the code is not supposed to be used even for that purpose. To quote the ICD-9 codebook:"The use of this category should be discouraged. Most of the items listed in the inclusion terms are not indicative of psychiatric disorder and are
included only because such terms may sometimes still appear as diagnoses." Besides masturbation, this category includes hair plucking, lalling, lisping, nail-biting and thumb-sucking. Obviously, none of those hobbies are likely to result in death, but the total here is more than 20 times those listed as due to marijuana. Think of the children.
Overexertion and Strenuous Movements - No doubt, these were not pot smokers. Don't strain yourself kids.
Pedal Cycle Accident - These are accidents on cycles which do not involve motor vehicles. These deaths were caused by things like breakage of vehicle parts, collisions with non-motorized objects (people, animals, trees), something tangled in the wheels, falling off the bike or overturning it.
Powered Household Appliances - Now you know why they have all those warnings written all over the box and owner's manuals. These are accidents attributed specifically to those which involve cutting or piercing by electric mixers, can openers, fans, electric knives and sewing machines; and should not be confused with deaths due to being electrocuted by these devices. Those deaths would be included in 925.0 (electrocution by domestic wiring and appliances).
Suffocation in Closed Space - Yes, this is the time-honored practice of locking yourself in an old refrigerator and the like. What is really interesting here is that 54 percent of the victims were 15 years old or older.
Tobacco - The number of people "killed" by the accumulated damages of long term tobacco use is much larger of course, but the deaths in this category are those attributed to tobacco dependence. These are likely to be cases where a person developed a serious condition like emphysema which may have improved had they quit smoking, but their addiction made quitting impossible.
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