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Steve Jobs' Official Cause of Death Listed as Respiratory Arrest and Pancreatic Tumor

You fill out a lot of death certificates in California? Requirements and prohibitions for death certificate documents vary by state. In some cases rather broadly.

And can every one cut with the conspiracy ****? He had a rare, quite treatable form of pancreatic tumor. Survival rate with early treatment is good. Survival rate with early treatment is not 100%.

As for "unorthodox" treatments, I don't know how much incense Jobs burned and ginger-fried tofu he ate, but he also had a liver transplant, which might be classed experimental, depending on the intent of the transplant, but it's hardly "unorthodox."

Dave00 said:
Speaking as someone who has filled out a fair number of death certificates, there are some interesting things about the report. First, I'm surprised that "respiratory arrest" was listed. You're specifically not allowed to put "respiratory arrest" as a cause of death, it says it right there on the instructions. While this may at first seem strange, if you think about it, we all die from respiratory arrest. You stop breathing, you stop living. It doesn't tell you anything about the actual cause of death. So, either the person that filled out the death certificate broke the rules, or the report is mistaken.

Second, I would not read too much into the time frame, as all dates are meant to be approximate.

Third - the death certificate is meant to tell a story, marching backward in time. For instance, final cause of death could be pneumonia, and then under that you could put pulmonary hypertension, which led to the pneumonia, and under that, COPD, which led to the pulmonary hypertension. And there is another section where you can put other health conditions that contributed to, but were not the cause of death.

I can only speculate, but I imagine the person filling it out was deliberately vague and left out every detail possible, out of respect for a very private man. Which is probably as it should be - no need for me or anyone else to know the details of his health.

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Okay, (a) how incredibly selfish, and (b) even looking at it from a purely stock-based perspective, you're wrong. Apple's stock didn't budge with the surprise announcement of Jobs' death. It did go lower in the coming days with the rest of the market, but since then has rebounded and now is $21 higher per share than the day before he died.
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A lot of great things have been said here, and i only write this as a reminder to some of you.

I lost my Mom a few years ago, and I never had the chance to say good bye or I Love You for the last time, which still eats away at me. I can't imagine knowing in advance, but I guess not having a chance to say good bye is just as bad.

The last photo with my mom was 3 months earlier at my college graduation. Following the ceremony, we hugged for a long time after I found her in the crowd, and I never wanted to let her go. I never really directly expressed what I felt as I grew older, but I'm glad we had our moment.

I can only ask you to enjoy and create those moments while you can.
 
ljones said:
A lot of great things have been said here, and i only write this as a reminder to some of you.

I lost my Mom a few years ago, and I never had the chance to say good bye or I Love You for the last time, which still eats away at me. I can't imagine knowing in advance, but I guess not having a chance to say good bye is just as bad.

The last photo with my mom was 3 months earlier at my college graduation. Following the ceremony, we hugged for a long time after I found her in the crowd, and I never wanted to let her go. I never really directly expressed what I felt as I grew older, but I'm glad we had our moment.

I can only ask you to enjoy and create those moments while you can.
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My sympathies for your loss.

There's no good way to lose someone close, and I'm sorry you didn't get the chance to say good bye as you wanted, but from your description of a long hug I think she knew how you felt.
 
ljones said:
A lot of great things have been said here, and i only write this as a reminder to some of you.

I lost my Mom a few years ago, and I never had the chance to say good bye or I Love You for the last time, which still eats away at me. I can't imagine knowing in advance, but I guess not having a chance to say good bye is just as bad.

The last photo with my mom was 3 months earlier at my college graduation. Following the ceremony, we hugged for a long time after I found her in the crowd, and I never wanted to let her go. I never really directly expressed what I felt as I grew older, but I'm glad we had our moment.

I can only ask you to enjoy and create those moments while you can.
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My sincere condolences.

Thank you bringing us into the present moment, for your poignant post, and for your ever so sage request.

All the best :)
 
So, in layman's terms... he stopped breathing?

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Brian Ralston said:
Upon hearing the news last week, within a couple hours...I felt compelled to write and post the following post on SCOREcastonline.com (the home site where I co-host the "film composer" podcast and am a contributing editor). Just thought I would share it with you all here.

http://www.scorecastonline.com/2011/10/steve-jobs
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Nice sentiment, but I get the strange feeling that you are using Steve's death as a way to promote traffic to your website. By the way, I didn't click on the link. It just felt inappropriate. :rolleyes:
 
THX1139 said:
So, in layman's terms... he stopped breathing?

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Nice sentiment, but I get the strange feeling that you are using Steve's death as a way to promote traffic to your website. By the way, I didn't click on the link. It just felt inappropriate. :rolleyes:
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Sorry it came across that way. Nothing of the sort intended, I assure you. We do not advertise on the site and do not make money with that site at all. It is a site for film composers by film composers mostly talking about issues dear to the hearts of the film composer community. So my point in sharing it with you is not to promote a site to a bunch of folks who most likely don't have anything to do with the topics we discuss...but simply because that is where my posting and thoughts on Steve is located. So much of what is said about Steve points to the products he had a hand in putting out there. I felt that something needed to be said about a deeper drive and legacy that at least spoke to me.

All the best.
 
It would be nice if they could hold something in a mutual place in the world for Steve's loyal followers to attend, but then again I'm pretty sure it would have to be an arena like venue. Even still, some of his closest friends and co-workers could come and speak on things only they would be able to tell us. Get all of us out of this funk from missing Steve. Make it the most awesome night ever and a positive celebration for a man who changed the world. Charge for admission and give the proceeds to a pancreatic cancer foundation. That would be pretty awesome.
 
sanford said:
You fill out a lot of death certificates in California? Requirements and prohibitions for death certificate documents vary by state. In some cases rather broadly.
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I've filled them out in 3 states. And they haven't varied much at all, right down to the second form of naming the decedent in a lateral orientation along the side. Admittedly, haven't filled them out in California, but the lack of variation in 3 states leads me to believe it's relatively similar. EVERYONE dies of respiratory arrest, it's the end product of every fatal process, and thus redundant and uninformative to list on a death certificate - which is why the instructions state not to list it that way. Again, perhaps CA is different, but I doubt it.
sanford said:
And can every one cut with the conspiracy ****? He had a rare, quite treatable form of pancreatic tumor. Survival rate with early treatment is good. Survival rate with early treatment is not 100%.
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No conspiracy **** here. Perhaps you were responding to someone else's post. His form of pancreatic cancer was more treatable than others; but honestly, given the lack of disclosure about the details, we really have no idea how treatable it was in him; or how early it was caught. We don't even know why he had a liver transplant, or what sort of "imbalance" was causing him to lose weight, as he said in the media. There's probably no way we'll ever know, and that's fine, since that's what he wanted.
 
AaronEdwards said:
You're wrong. The type of pancreatic cancer he had has a much better prognosis if treated early. (And treated here means having an operation.)
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And yet, even with the best treatment, it doesn't always work. For his type of cancer, the 9-year survival rate is a little over 30%. A little under 30% at 10 years. On average. That he still beat 60% of folks with that form of pancreatic cancer is good. Not great, obviously, but I'm not really sure we should be bashing him for not beating 70% of the population when we don't have the details of any complications that might have arisen after the surgery. We only have what little details the public record also has.

AaronEdwards said:
Considering Jobs' access to the best care in the world, he most likely lived less than he should have. So, not a miracle. What ever he did between first being diagnosed and having an operation made the tumor grow. Now, I don't think he did nothing. Which would point towards "unorthodox" treatments.
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I'm pretty sure just continuing to breathe lets the tumor grow.
 
Krevnik said:
And yet, even with the best treatment, it doesn't always work. For his type of cancer, the 9-year survival rate is a little over 30%. A little under 30% at 10 years. On average. That he still beat 60% of folks with that form of pancreatic cancer is good. Not great, obviously, but I'm not really sure we should be bashing him for not beating 70% of the population when we don't have the details of any complications that might have arisen after the surgery. We only have what little details the public record also has.
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It's been widely reported that Jobs had a neuroendocrine tumor, and the survival rates for those aren't under 30% at 10 years. They are more like 80-90% at 10 years. Not sure where you got your survival rates, because they aren't as bad as the the more common type of pancreatic cancer, but also not as good as the one Jobs had.

I'm pretty sure just continuing to breathe lets the tumor grow.
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And that's why he should have had it removed at once. And not wait 9 months. Because it grows.
 
What a wonderful legacy steve has left behind. Millions have shown an outpour of love and admiration for someone who they never even met but touched their lives and improved it in so many ways. My thoughts are with his family and friends. RIP Steve and long live :apple:
 
A few additions

Steve's death certificate said "High Tech" Entrepreneur. Also, there was no formal post mortem, so I dare say while the respiratory issue is probably true, it's exact cause is likely based on his known existing condition, for which the Pancreatic Cancer seems like the smoking gun, but he'd lived with that for a while, and had more-recent issues, such as the Liver Transplant (and a claimed 'hormonal imbalance') so it could have been other things.

The certificate is at http://blogs-images.forbes.com/briancaulfield/files/2011/10/stevejobscertpub1.jpg
 
farmboy said:
Briefly: nonsense. Cancer is the leading cause of death worldwide (per WHO), including in nations where non-western medicine is practiced, diet is different, and stress/emotional issues are different. Further, you have absolutely NO idea what Apple's board said, or what/why Jobs decided anything.

As far as weaponized cancer...uh OK....who exactly "infected" him (Google, Michael Dell, Samsung...?), and how did they deliver it into the pancreas--I'm pretty sure you would notice. Not to mention 8 years is a long time for a weapon to take effect.
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you do not know much about the real world, my friend.


___________________

ipoddingalong said:
This makes my heart hurt. :( :apple:
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mine too. exceptional recognition by you, ipoddingalong!
 
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