Actually, It Turns Out That November Is the Cruelest Month

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


I’ve been wondering why my health collapsed so badly when I turned 55, and now Science™ has provided the answer. It’s because I was born in October, which lags only November for being the net riskiest birth month. Here’s the Washington Post:

Mary Regina Boland, Nicholas Tatonetti and other researchers at the Columbia University Department of Medicine examined records for an incredible 1.75 million patients born between 1900 and 2000 who had been treated at Columbia University Medical Center. Using statistical analysis, they combed through 1,688 different diseases and found 55 that had a correlation with birth month, including ADHD, reproductive performance, asthma, eye sight and ear infections.

The researchers emphasize that other environmental factors, like diet, medical care and exercise, are more likely to influence whether you get a disease. And since these numbers are culled from New York City, they may not be applicable to babies born in other places.

Culled only from New York City, huh? And it was just a massive data mining operation looking for correlations at the 95 percent level? This suggests you’d get 84 correlations just by chance. They got 55.

So….maybe not so impressive. Then again, this is all addressed in the paper, and it’s far too complicated for me to understand. I mean, what the hell is a “multiplicity correction using FDR (α_0.05, n_1688 conditions)”? Beats me. But everything in this paper is “FDR adjusted.” So maybe that means the correlations are legit. Perhaps someone who knows what this means can weigh in in comments.

In any case, if we believe this, it explains why my sister, brother, and mother are all healthy, while I’m a basket case. I was born in the wrong month. But on the plus side, I apparently have a lower than normal risk of cardiovascular diseases, including heart failure. Good to know.

POSTSCRIPT: Everyone gets that I’m just having fun here, right? Honestly, I haven’t the slightest idea of whether this stuff holds water. Still, everyone loves simple charts that put them and their friends in buckets, right?

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate