(In addition to its decision support application dealing with Infectious Diseases, Microbiology and Toxicology, GIDEON Informatics, Inc as part of GIDEON Labs, maintains a second service – www.VIPatients.com – which follows the diseases and deaths of all famous persons throughout history. The user can review all diseases of a specific VIP, or generate a list of famous persons by Profession, Disease, Year – or any combination. The following is based on data generated from the site).

On December 31, the Media will once again recount all of the wars, earthquakes, divorces, births, rapes, sporting records …. Inevitably, a long list of famous persons will have passed on: most “after a long illness,” “suddenly” or “of natural causes.” 427 famous folk died of specified misfortunes in 2008. For the purpose of this research, “famous” is defined as “well recognized by the general public at large.”

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Predictably, 2009 will be greeted with endless publications which recount the divorces, disasters, political events, athletic records and famous deaths of 2008. Sadly, the routine misfortunes which visit most of the world will be largely neglected. Individual countries are burdened by major outbreaks of infectious disease on an almost daily basis; but few people in the West hear of these episodes unless they are sensationalized by the Media (Ebola) or are seen as a threat to other developed nations (Avian influenza).

Although the current outbreak of Avian influenza (“bird flu”) began in 2003, and has continued well into 2008, the numbers of reported cases and deaths has actually been decreasing since, 2006. A total of only 387 cases, and 245 deaths, from this infection have been reported to date. In other words, the chance of dying from a lightning bolt or scorpion sting in one of the infected countries is far greater than the chance of acquiring bird flu.

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