increased incidence of alcoholrelated deaths from accidents and violence in subjects with ankylosing spondylitis subjects with ankylosing spondylitis as have an increased incidence of deaths from accidents and violence which is due in part but perhaps not entirely to the vulnerability of the affected spine to fractures the present study covered all the 71 subjects 58 men and 13 women who had died in finland in 1989 and who were entitled under the nationwide sickness insurance scheme to receive specially reimbursed medication for as the death certificates of an earlier cohort study dealing with mortality in as were also reexamined sixteen subjects 14 men and two women in the 1989 mortality series had died of accidents and violence nine of the deaths three accidents two suicides and four alcohol poisonings were alcohol related the relative risk of such deaths in subjects with as compared to the finnish population as a whole was 264 95 confidence interval 144484 in the cohort study 16 deaths had been due to accidents and violence the expected number being 114 eight of the 16 deaths had been alcohol related uncontrolled use of alcohol is an important determinant in the surplus of deaths from accidents and violence in finnish patients with as