[htss2013]

Can we not make a reasonable assumption that whistleblowers against a powerful company have a much higher than average risk of dying? Knowing nothing about them personally we can reasonably conclude:

- They get regular death threats.

- The opposing law firms probably have PIs digging into their lives for dirt to discredit them.

- Their careers in their line of work are over and as far as I know, there's no whistle-blower retirement fund.

- Everyone they knew and worked with for many years and who still works there probably cut them off for fear of being associated with them.

- Because of all this their sleep is probably horrible, they're much more likely to have unhealthy alcohol habits, and to have financial problems.

[groby_b]

Maybe. But these are all random assumptions, and we have no way of taking them into account without a lot of work on the modeling.

But the point I was trying to make (badly, based on where the discussion is going :) was that "two whistleblowers dying is still somewhat probable". Increased likelihood of death just makes it more probable.