Probability of death

You may have seen an ad running on MSNBC yesterday that questioned McCain's health and age. Bill O'Liely called MSNBC to complain, and they cancelled the ad.

Just for the record, I looked up the standard mortality tables. McCain is 72 years old. Out of every 100,000 males alive at birth, the tables show that 67,016 will be alive at 72. Of those, only 57,395 will be alive four years later. In other words, there's a 15.85 percent chance McCain will die before he finishes his first term.

That figure doesn't even take account of the fact that McCain has had repeated cancers. The other day I read a note from some dermatologists saying that given a five year survival from the type of cancer McCain had (and, it's been about five I think), there is still about a 15% chance of his dying from that cancer in the next few years. That's more or less on top of the 15.85 percent chance he'd die even if he hadn't had cancer. Combine it, and you get a probability of roughly 30% that he'll die before the end of his first term -- that's almost a one in three chance!

It seems to me that's worth worrying about, no matter how morbid it may seem, particularly when it's Sarah Palin, the bimbette, who's waiting in the wings.