French heat related deaths now estimated at 11,000

[DemoCoder]

Almost 4x what we lost on 9/11, and 1/5 the total casualities in Vietnam, lost in a matter of a week or so. Terrorists would love it if they could execute an attack that could quickly kill ELEVEN THOUSAND people. Why aren't the French more outraged than they already are? They pay thru the nose for what they think is the best socialized medical care in the world, and all the other nicities of urbanized living, shouldn't this be happening to other less caring countries, we know which.

It's been twenty years since the US had a huge heat related death wave, and the last time it happened, it was only 1000 people.

But I guess we invented ice, air conditioning, and pretty much all new construction comes with A/C prep, so the difference is to be expected. Just goes to show you that you can have great socialized medicine, but if your home architecture sucks, and if your lazy grandchildren and children go off on multiweek/month vacations, it won't help.

 

[Natoma]

Gotta love that electrical grid. Too bad it's not modern enough to support AC use throughout the country. Either that or the french are just stupid for not buying them.

Oh and did you hear? London went blacked out yesterday as well. They lost power for half an hour throughout the city and they were bitching and moaning and scared, well at least according to the news report.

 

[John Reynolds]

Now don't go sounding sympathetic to those who died, guys. Sheesh.

 

[Natoma]

I am sympathetic to those who died in France. But you know, it is kinda hard to not have that knee-jerk "kick em while they're down" feeling toward the french.

I don't know why, but they just irk me.........

 

[DemoCoder]

I have more outrage. Just imagine what would happen if 11,000 additional senior citizens died needlessly in the US in a single week because of weather or improper A/C or heating. We get upset if more than 10 or 20 people die in an a earthquake or hurricane.

Where is the outrage over this? In the US, the AARP would probably shut down Congress and the Presidency for this.

 

[Nathan]

It's strange how people feel outrage over different things. I find America's gun culture very disturbing. In 2000 28,663 people were killed by firearms in the US. Where is the outrage over this?

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0764212.html

11,000 people is certainly a great loss, but you have no right to judge a country or it's citizens on an issue like this.

 

[Joe DeFuria]

... you have no right to judge a country or it's citizens on an issue like this.

I could be wrong, but I think that's kinda the point....

 

[DemoCoder]

There is a difference between deaths that are easily preventable and those that aren't. About 50,000 people die in car accidents every year, but there is no simple way to fix it. Ditto for the gun hysteria statistic (which is wrong anyway) About 60% of those 28,000 are suicides, which arguably would happen with other weapons (look at overall suicide rate). (source CDC and FBI) Another 10% is police officers and citizens killing criminals in defense. There were 15,000 murders in the US in 2000 and only 60% were committed with firearms.

That means that about 9000 people were murdered with guns in the US, a country of 280,000,000, or a firearm murder rate of 3.2 per 100k. France, a country of 60,000,000 had 11,000 people die for a rate of 18.3 100k, or 6 times higher than the gun murder rate.

Moreover, the US has arguably been a violent society with an elevated rate of violent crime for over 150 years. It is not an easy problem to solve, and certainly isn't stricly attribute to guns as European gun grabbing idiots like to state (just look at Canada's rate of violence and gun ownership levels for contradictory data)

But taking care of your mother and father, and buying an air conditioner, a standard appliance that everyone should have in addition to telephone and clean water, and heating? Easily preventable, and in a high tax country like France, I'd have expect the government to BUY YOU an A/C.


I can criticize whoever I want BTW.

 

[Nathan]

Here in New Zealand, air conditioning in homes is very rare. If it's too hot - we go for a swim. What a poor, backward country I live in.

I really hope the government buys me an air conditioner when summer turns up - just in case it's REALLY hot here too. I'm sure they have them hidden away somewhere, just waiting to be distributed. Maybe they could provide me with a biosphere to protect the paint on my house from the nasty hole in the ozone layer as well.

It's amazing how easy it is to fix someone else's problem, but fixing your own - no, let's just make excuses instead.

 

[DemoCoder]

There are areas of the US prone to heat waves and where air conditioning is not common, yet no mass die offs.

In northern california, many houses are not built with A/C if they were built more than 20 years ago, because the temperature is about 60-70 year around. I almost NEVER need to run the A/C. There are many nights in summer in fact that I need heat. However, in July, there are sometimes week long heat waves that exceed 100F. Why no similar die off?

Aren't American old people supposed to be more impoverished because of our lack of super welfare systems? Aren't americans supposed to be workaholics who don't take care of their elders? Again, why is the death rate so high in France.


You can try all you like to deflect criticism and reference other social ills, but the fact remains that making highways safer, cleaning up drugs, AIDS, guns, are much much together problems than basic HEALTHY building environments with adequate environmental controls.

If you think I am a callous bastard for criticizing this issue, what do you think of those who right after 9/11 were talking about how we deserved it/should have had different foreign policy/yadda yadda yadda? If it's fair game to criticize US foreign policy for the deaths of 2000+ Americans, it's fair game to criticize the French government for this health disaster of 11,000 as well.

France makes a habit out of criticising other countries when far fewer people die. Medicine Sans Frontiers will declare a humanitarian disaster if 100 people die in Africa. They cricitize the US for "inhumane" treatment of prisoners at Guantanomo Bay because they were in open shelters designed to cool (unlike what the troops guarding them were staying in), because we hadn't built airconditioned prison cells for them. (none died from heat)

And now we learn that French hospitals and retirement homes/nursing homes don't have air conditioning, or even ice making capability. And the 35-hour work week vacation happy labor force contributed to a dire lack of staffing at hospitals to handle the flow of sick and dying.

Remember that the next time you start talking about how great socialized medical care and how much the US system sucks, when you lack sufficient staff and equipment to deal with a "run on" the hospitals all at once (oh, there's no waiting lists!). US spends a higher % of GDP on care, but we do end up with more capacity, and atleast they can house the patients in air conditioned administrator offices if they run out of space.


This is a humanitarian disaster of epic proportions. Far worse than many that occur in the third world.

 

[Humus]

Gotta love that electrical grid. Too bad it's not modern enough to support AC use throughout the country.

I'm curios about this claim that I've seen so much of lately, that France's power grid would be in such a bad condition it couldn't handle AC use. I have no idea about the actual condition of the power grid in France or anywhere else, but it sounds more like a myth to me. I can't imagine that the power grid would stand or fall with the use of AC. Even if AC was used all over the country it would likely still just be noise compared to the normal power consumption. Most power goes into industrial facilities.

 

[Humus]

There is a difference between deaths that are easily preventable and those that aren't. About 50,000 people die in car accidents every year, but there is no simple way to fix it.

Well, maybe there's no "simple" way, but it can certainly be reduced significantly if effort is spent on the issue. I note that 50,000 people out of 280 million is a rate that's about 3.5x the rate in Sweden of 532 last year out of 9 million. Much of this can be attributed to the "vision zero" the road department have spent lots of effort into the last number of years which has reduced the number of deadly accidents last year. In involves everything rebuilding statistically dangereous roads, adjusting speed limits etc.

Ditto for the gun hysteria statistic (which is wrong anyway) About 60% of those 28,000 are suicides, which arguably would happen with other weapons (look at overall suicide rate).

I'm not so sure about that conclusion. With a gun shot you can kill yourself quickly and easily. With things like knifes it's harder and can involve quite a lot of pain. Many people that tries to commit suicides actually fail, and that may mean that they will get the help they need to get over the problem once people know that someone has so serious trouble that he's trying to kill himself.

 

[Natoma]

Gotta love that electrical grid. Too bad it's not modern enough to support AC use throughout the country.

I'm curios about this claim that I've seen so much of lately, that France's power grid would be in such a bad condition it couldn't handle AC use. I have no idea about the actual condition of the power grid in France or anywhere else, but it sounds more like a myth to me. I can't imagine that the power grid would stand or fall with the use of AC. Even if AC was used all over the country it would likely still just be noise compared to the normal power consumption. Most power goes into industrial facilities.

I read about the same problem in Italy actually. Their transmission grid and power production capabilities would not allow them to sustain mass AC use. It's a problem in a few countries in Europe.

 

[DemoCoder]

There is a difference between deaths that are easily preventable and those that aren't. About 50,000 people die in car accidents every year, but there is no simple way to fix it.

Well, maybe there's no "simple" way, but it can certainly be reduced significantly if effort is spent on the issue. I note that 50,000 people out of 280 million is a rate that's about 3.5x the rate in Sweden of 532 last year out of 9 million. Much of this can be attributed to the "vision zero" the road department have spent lots of effort into the last number of years which has reduced the number of deadly accidents last year. In involves everything rebuilding statistically dangereous roads, adjusting speed limits etc.

I'm not sure the rate can be attributable to road conditions, the US has a pretty good highway system and until recently, had more conservative speed limits that many euro-zone countries. I'd say that the higher rate probably has something to do with the fact that a much higher percentage people drive long distances everyday vs public transportation, that they drive dangerous and unsafe SUVs, that there may be a higher degree of road rage or aggressive driving, and perhaps a higher drinking and driving rate.

The last one may turn out to be the most important. There was a 36% decrease in traffic fatalities due to drinking and driving from a high peak in 1980 until 1999.


My own experience from listening to daily traffic reports is that the majority of daytime accidents are caused by two types of people: aggressive multi-lane-changing tail-gating drivers and fatigued workers driving home. Very rare is the accident not caused by driver errror (vs mechanical, or a problem with the road)

There are some highways with bad merges (too short to accelerate), but you can always yield completely, or use the shoulder.

In fact, a french co-worker told me that US driving tests are way too easy to pass. My experience is that California's test is harder than Virginia. In Virginia, they simply rubber stamped my license. In CA, they grilled you alot more.

The last factor could be the number of old people driving. I don't know about Sweden, but here we have alot of tragic deaths from 70-80 year old people who simply can't drive. Bad eye sight, extremely slow reaction times, bad judgement, or even falling asleep at the wheel.

Some of it can be helped by government policy: harsher tests, retest old people after a certain age, more policing against agressive drivers, fix short merges, fix bad intersections, continue reducing drinking and driving. But same background rate is going to remain because of simple driver error and the huge number of Americans who drive.

In fact, it's almost impossible to live in most of the US without a car with the exception of big urban cities.

 

[pax]

Certainly 11000 is lot more than 3000 but Im still not sure most of them werent of elderly on the verge of dying and simply being added on by zealous political opponents of Chiracs conservative gov.

Im also not sure if the accounting of heat or dehydration deaths in the US is done the same as in France especially during summer months.

Death by dehydration is common for terminal phase cancers, alzhemiers ect... Its in fact extemely cruel and seen as such in many places to sustain some elderly persons life with IV's and gastric's when in terminal phase.

There should be an investigation in France and as much as I dont like the conservative gov cuts there, I think its too early to draw judgement to this degree.

You are in the awkward position of defending left wing opponents of Chirac there demo

 

[epicstruggle]

Certainly 11000 is lot more than 3000 but Im still not sure most of them werent of elderly on the verge of dying and simply being added on by zealous political opponents of Chiracs conservative gov.

wow, i guess stating your opinion about a govermnent you disagree with is being a zealot? Is it the same as calling those against the war, anti-american?

Pax, there is nothing wrong with questioning govemnent. Even if its the people on the oppisite side of your beliefs.

Also we should pass laws stating that those on the verge of dying should be put out of their missery and just be put to sleep (permanently). We just need to decide how "on the verge" means. Some might think days, or weeks. Others months. Lets just say that if your doctor gives you less than 2-3 months than your right to life has been forfeited and any cause (murder, accident, terrorist act,...) should be excused and the death should be just forgotten.

later,
epic

 

[Xmas]

Gotta love that electrical grid. Too bad it's not modern enough to support AC use throughout the country. Either that or the french are just stupid for not buying them.

Uhm, sorry, but I don't think the amount of ecxess power is an indicator of how "modern" a power grid is.

Power supply grows with demand. Like any other kind of infrastructure. If there had been a big demand for AC in the last decades, the power grid would certainly be able to handle it (though I don't even think it isn't able to do so now).

 

[Mariner]

I'm actually pretty sure that France exports plenty of energy to the south of England - they have a big thing about Nuclear power stations over there and welcome them, rather than protesting as we do in this country!

In my experience, air conditioning is very rare in the UK and most places in Europe. This is simply because we don't need it 99.999% of the time! Certainly we have the odd heatwave but the recent one throughout Europe has been pretty much exceptional and is not the norm. If heatwaves such as this become a more frequent event, then perhaps aircon will become more common. Here in the UK, central heating is more important! (The central heating actually came on in my house last night as it became quite chilly - not usual in August!)

 

[Xmas]

Almost 4x what we lost on 9/11, and 1/5 the total casualities in Vietnam, lost in a matter of a week or so. Terrorists would love it if they could execute an attack that could quickly kill ELEVEN THOUSAND people. Why aren't the French more outraged than they already are? They pay thru the nose for what they think is the best socialized medical care in the world, and all the other nicities of urbanized living, shouldn't this be happening to other less caring countries, we know which.

About two months, not a week. I wonder how those numbers are taken, and how many deaths happened due to preventable mistakes in the healthcare system. Certainly this should be investigated.

It's been twenty years since the US had a huge heat related death wave, and the last time it happened, it was only 1000 people.

Hm, I can't remember any heat related death wave in Europe before. So it can happen anywhere.
What area was affected back then? France is small compared to the US, but has a higher population density. Again, I wonder how these numbers were taken?

But I guess we invented ice, air conditioning, and pretty much all new construction comes with A/C prep, so the difference is to be expected. Just goes to show you that you can have great socialized medicine, but if your home architecture sucks, and if your lazy grandchildren and children go off on multiweek/month vacations, it won't help.

 

[pax]

[quote="epicstrugglewow, i guess stating your opinion about a govermnent you disagree with is being a zealot? Is it the same as calling those against the war, anti-american?

Pax, there is nothing wrong with questioning govemnent. Even if its the people on the oppisite side of your beliefs.

Also we should pass laws stating that those on the verge of dying should be put out of their missery and just be put to sleep (permanently). We just need to decide how "on the verge" means. Some might think days, or weeks. Others months. Lets just say that if your doctor gives you less than 2-3 months than your right to life has been forfeited and any cause (murder, accident, terrorist act,...) should be excused and the death should be just forgotten.

later,
epic[/quote]

Um didnt say there shouldnt be an investigation... didnt say there shouldnt be any questionning of gov... <sigh> did u even read my post?

Its not normal to have humans die on a monthly or weekly basis with 'stable' numbers. Ive never seen it in my institution and yes they die in waves... flues.. heat waves that accelerate dehydration... Welcome to the real world epic.

Now to say that what happened in France was normal or abnormal is not definitively proven yet. What we did see is that the system took great care to monitor what happened but other parts didnt react appropriately according to some.

Im only saying let the investigation take place and see if those who died couldve or shouldve been saved. In the US the policy of not force feeding dying patients in health care institutions is as much present as in other countries.

BTW to restate I dont like the conservatve gov of Chirac in France. So good criticism of that gov is something Id like to see more of. But I like valid criticism vs bad. Bad criticism will only bring ire to the critics who right now tend too be on the left of the spectrum in France as they are not in power...