What Are The Odds of Getting ALS?
|
This is where the numbers get interesting.
The odds of your getting ALS in your lifetime are actually around 1 in 1,000. That's about even with your chance of getting Multiple Sclerosis. The big difference is that medicine has greatly improved the life expectancy for those with MS so that we are much more aware of the disease and the people we see living with it.
|
People with ALS die so quickly that there far fewer of them in our midst at any moment in time. That doesn't mean that the threat of this disease leaves our midst.
|
Putting ALS in an Interesting Perspective
|
See the National Geographic's "Odds of Dying" chart from April, 2006, by clicking the the image to the right. ALS belongs in the neighborhood of "Drowning" on that chart.
|
|
Google for "National Safety Council Odds". They publish from time to time and don't seem to leave them in one place for long so that we can link. Look for annual deaths less than 5500 on their charts. Your odds of getting ALS are higher than any of those items.
|
| People buy lottery tickets with the belief that incredibly unlikely good things can happen to them. ALS is a much more likely event in their lives. Some of those lottery dollars would be much better spent on an ALS registry and some medical research to find the cause and cure!
|
|
|
