Alcohol kills twice as many as category 5 pandemic - every year

Alcohol is the worst pandemic the world has ever known.  Let's compare the number of people alcohol kills every year with those killed by influenza pandemics.

The Ministry of Health reports that since May 2009, 3,163 New Zealanders have contracted the H1N1 virus (swine flu) and 18 have died.  This information is contained in the MOH's 153rd update about the virus which has been released on this website. However, deaths from the swine flu bare little comparison with the worst pandemic in New Zealand history - the influenza epidemic of 1918 which killed an estimated 8,200 Kiwis.

Alcohol related deaths in NZ

Nor does it compare with the 1,000 New Zealanders who die directly from alcohol related causes each year – because of drink driving accidents, drownings, murders, suicides, liver cirrhosis, heart disease, cancer and approximately 60 other health problems caused by drinking. This statistic does not even begin to reflect the reduced quality of life which thousands of others experience because of excessive drinking.

Economist, Brian Easton says the cost of damage caused by alcohol in New Zealand is $25 billion a year. He even says New Zealand’s population would be 30,000 higher than it is if it weren’t for premature deaths caused by drinking.

International death rates

International mortality figures are equally disturbing. In the United States, government estimates say alcohol is responsible for 100,000 deaths a year. In the European Union, alcohol is estimated to kill 200,000 people a year - that’s 540 people a day.

Alcohol related death occurs in virtually every country in the world, and so in many respects, it resembles a pandemic. Pandemics are classified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the United States on a scale of severity from 1 to 5 – where a category 1 kills less than 0.1 of total reported cases and a category 5 kills at least 2% of reported cases.

Twice as bad as Category 5

The National Committee on Addiction in NZ says that around 25,000 people attend substance abuse treatment each year. Since 1,000 people die from alcohol related causes each year that’s 4% of the total reported cases each year – which is makes it twice as bad as a category 5 pandemic.

The influenza pandemic of 1918 was nearly 100 years ago. Excessive alcohol consumption kills twice as many New Zealanders as a category 5 pandemic every single year - not once every hundred years.  Do we ever read about that in the mainstream media?

Roger Brooking author of Flying Blind - How the Justice system perpetuates crime and the Corrections Department fails to correct.