ATLANTA, April 22 (UPI) -- Motor vehicle traffic deaths were the leading cause of injury death from 1999 to 2005, accounting for 43,667 deaths in 2005, a U.S. government report said.
The report by Lois A. Fingerhut and Robert N. Anderson of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta also said that in 2005, poisoning continued to be the second-leading cause of injury death in the United States, having surpassed firearms for the first time in 2004. In 2005, there were 32,691 poisoning deaths compared with 30,694 firearm deaths.
The 2005 poisoning death rate peaked at ages 45 to 54 years, whereas the motor vehicle traffic and firearm death rates peaked at ages 20 to 24 years, with a secondary peak for motor vehicle traffic deaths at 85 years and over.
Poisoning deaths for each age group were more likely to be classified as unintentional rather than as suicides or homicides; for all ages, 72 percent of poisoning deaths were classified as unintentional in 2005. Firearm deaths were more apt to be homicides at younger ages and suicides at older ages, the report said.
