Death at work in America: pandemic, mostly unacknowledged.
Forty years ago, when lots of Americans made things, more of them died in a year on the job than died in a year fighting in Vietnam. This never registered much in the national consciousness. Death in war seems so preventable; death on the job is "an accident." Now, the numbers have diminished, but the basic pattern holds. Fewer Americans die on the battlefield or on the job. But the death of U.S. soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan still stirs anger, and the body count is still far lower than death on the job. The 4,924 American soldiers (as of mid-April 2009) who have died in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001 are known and memorialized; not so the 40,019 workers who died on the job between 2001 and 2007 (not counting the 9/11 dead).
Wypijewski
JoAnn
J
jwyp@earthlink.net
D001364:Awareness; D004651:Employment; D006801:Humans; D009026:Mortality / Q000639:trends*; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology