14 Dec 04 - 01:56 PM,

I do not have the impression that you understand the implications of what you have read. You should be a bit more critical with what you read in popular publications before you sound a false alarm. With the researcher's name in the article and the university it is very easy to find his homepage with his major publications. A short look shows what his major hypothesis is: "Postponement of death until symbolically meaningful occasions".

I have read out of interest now one of his original articles: His research shows (though not unequivocally) that there is a dip before such days and an increase shortly after ("will to live at least until..."). The mean number of deaths before and after days with special meaning to a person remains the same in comparison to the other months of the same time of the year.

So, your remedy (ignoring the holiday season) just would have the consequence that the people that now die during the holidays will die some days earlier. It would decrease the average life expectancy by a few hours or days.

One more artifact enters the data (and is discussed in the original literature): Live-support systems are usually not disconnected in the week(s) before a holiday ("Granny so much wanted to reach her ninetieth birthday, let us wait at least that long").

If you do not want to celebrate these days, 14 Dec 04 - 01:56 PM, that's fine and I wish you a nice time. But don't use a study you have not understood for a flimsy argumentation.

Wolfgang