But evidently flu deaths are not so rare. Just as starving to death is a consequence of economics for the farmer, dying of the flu is a consequence of economics for the poor in the United States. One cannot pay for food during a famine, and the other cannot pay for health services during the yearly epidemic.

What is your point exactly? That industrialized civilization isn’t actually better than abject rural poverty, because a tiny minority of people still die of poverty-related causes? How do the numbers stack up on each side?

80,000 people is less than 1 in 3750 Americans — I’ll take my chances with those odds over living somewhere with regular famines.