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Liz- No the homeless person does not die from the poverty. He/she dies from starvation secondary to poverty. Both are important to know. While it is obvious that an emaciated person needs nourishment or they will die what the PROXIMATE CAUSE OF DEATH (medico-legal term for the immediate of cause of death) is is the malnutrition not the poverty. While I doubt that in this case Poverty would go on the death certificate- and it probably should since I agree with you that it is the cause- but a social cause rather than a medical one and the people in the coroner's office wouldn't know how to code it for the death certificate. In the case of PD, It probably would be written as something like "Cardio-respiratory arrest secondary to pneumonia and secondary to PD. " So technically nobody tie of PD they die of the complications of PD. Also PD does not seem to materially shorten life - which goes against intuition since many of us have seen people die who wouldn't have died if they didn't have PD. But regardless. Whatever it says on the death certificate is totally meaningless if your laying in that box.. Charlie Elizabeth Southwood wrote: > Thanks, Charlie, for your clear explanation re causes of death, precautions > against complications and what is responsible and whether in the long run it > really matters whether or not the primary illness is responsible. I was > serious in my query: Several times I have encountered statements saying > nobody dies of Parkinsons. It seemed to me that that is open to > interpretation. If Parkinsons causes difficulty swallowing and I aspirate > some food and get pneumonia and die, the actual cause is pneumonia, but it > seems to me the cause is Parkinsons. If a homeless person starves to death, > they die of starvation, but the causative factor is being destitute. Right? > Liz S. -- ****************************************************************************************** Charles T. Meyer, M.D. Middleton (Madison), Wisconsin [log in to unmask] ******************************************************************************************