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<< I just did a little math. Assuming the Tsunami killed 200,000 people (I've heard higher numbers, but for arguments sake, I'll use 200k).

The population of Thailand is 61 million. This amounts to .305% of the population killed.

America, with a population today of 296 million, an equal sacrifice (percentagewise) would be 902,800 deaths. >>

So lets see a little perspective, here:

In 2004 around two and a half million Africans died from the diseases the health organizations [To maximize their aid "takes"] have lumped under the HIV/AIDS umbrella -- and another two millions or so died young from all of the other African causes of early death.

In America the equivilent number of deaths would have been around two million, six-hundred and fifty thousand.

And meanwhile, in 2004, between three and three-hundred and fifty thousand Americans died from our biggest-killer disease: Alcoholism.

Alcoholism is terrible, but as far primary cause of death ranks way down there at 12, with undoubted bleedover into 6.

(There is, however, some research data suggesting acetaldehyde, an intermediary substance into which the liver converts alcohol during metabolization, interferes with celluar DNA repair functions and can therefore facilite some of the mutations that lead to cancer.)

Rank¹	Causes of death	Number	Deaths per 100,000 population
	All causes	2,416,425	848.5
1.	Diseases of heart	700,142	245.8
2.	Malignant neoplasms (cancer)	553,768	194.4
3.	Cerebrovascular diseases	163,538	57.4
4.	Chronic lower respiratory diseases	123,013	43.2
5.	Accidents (unintentional injuries)	101,537	35.7
6.	Diabetes mellitus	71,372	25.1
7.	Influenza and pneumonia	62,034	21.8
8.	Alzheimer's disease	53,852	18.9
9.	Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis	39,480	13.9
10.	Septicemia	32,238	11.3
11.	Suicide	30,622	10.8
12.	Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis	27,035	9.5
13.	Homicide	20,308	7.1
14.	Hypertension and hypertensive renal disease	19,250	6.8
15.	Pneumonitis due to solids and liquids	17,301	6.1
	All other causes	400,935	140.8

1. Rank based on number of deaths.

Source: U.S. National Center for Health Statistics, National Vital Statistics Report, vol. 52, no. 3, Sept. 18, 2003. Web: www.cdc.gov/nchs