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Death
by Medicine: The Real Epidemic
Iatrogenic Injury:
Definition—Physician Caused injury or death
Did you know doctors are 9,000 times more likely to kill you than
a gun owner?
You might feel doubtful but view the following information.
All these are deaths per year:
* 12,000—unnecessary surgery in hospitals
* 7,000—medication errors in hospitals
* 20,000—other errors in hospitals
* 80,000—infections in hospitals
* 106,000—non-error, negative effects of drugs in hospitals
These total to 225,000 deaths per year from these iatrogenic causes.
That’s equivalent to 2 jumbo jets crashes every day!
Keep in mind these numbers:
- Are lower and more conservative than some other reports. And fewer
than 10% of medical mistakes are reported to hospital authorities.
The patients or their families are never told that the doctors caused
the injuries. It is hard to know the exact number because there
is no compulsion for hospitals or doctors to report iatrogenic complications.
- Only account for deaths during hospital care.
- Are for deaths only and do not include negative effects associated
with disability or discomfort.
It is estimated that 1 in every 200 patients in our hospitals has
an iatrogenic death annually. Airlines have a better rate for
lost luggage than hospitals have with lives.
Another
analysis concluded that between 4% and 18% of consecutive patients
experience negative effects in outpatient settings, with:
*
116 million extra physician visits |
*
3 million long-term admissions |
*
77 million extra prescriptions |
*
199,000 additional deaths |
*
17 million emergency department visits |
*
$77 billion in extra costs |
*
8 million hospitalizations |
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This might be tolerated if it resulted in better health, but does
it? Of 13 countries in a recent comparison, the United States ranks
an average of 12th (second from the bottom) for 16 available health
indicators. The poor performance of the US was once again confirmed
by a World Health Organization study, which used different data
and ranked the US as 15th among 25 industrialized countries.
As shown in the following table, the estimated total number
of iatrogenic deaths—that is, deaths induced inadvertently
by a physician or surgeon or by medical treatment or diagnostic
procedures— in the US annually is 783,936. These include
hospitals, nursing homes, and outpatient care. It is evident that
the American medical system is itself the leading cause
of death and injury in the US. By comparison, approximately
699,697 Americans died of heart disease in 2001, while 553,251 died
of cancer.
Table
1: Estimated Annual Mortality and Economic Cost of Medical Intervention
| Condition
|
Deaths |
Cost |
Author |
| Adverse
Drug Reactions |
106,000
|
$12
billion |
Lazarou(1),
Suh (49) |
| Medical
Error |
98,000 |
$2
billion |
IOM(6) |
| Bedsores |
115,000 |
$55
billion |
Xakellis(7),
Barczak (8) |
| Infection |
88,000
|
$5
billion |
Weinstein(9),
MMWR (10) |
| Malnutrition |
108,800
|
----------- |
Nurses
Coalition(11) |
| Outpatients |
199,000 |
$77
billion |
Starfield(12),
Weingart(112) |
| Unnecessary
Procedures |
37,136 |
$122
billion |
HCUP(3,13) |
| Surgery-Related |
32,000
|
$9
billion |
AHRQ(85) |
| Total |
783,936 |
$282
billion |
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If you convert to estimate over 10 years it is more than 7.8 million
iatrogenic deaths, which is more than all the casualties from all
the wars fought by the U.S. throughout history.
This number of deaths per year is equivalent to six jumbo jets crashing
every day!
It is time to rethink our health care system! It is time we started
focusing on taking care of health instead of managing the disease.
References
Death by Medicine by Gary Null, PhD; Carolyn Dean MD, ND; Martin
Feldman, MD; Debora Rasio, MD; and Dorothy Smith, PhD. You can read
their entire article at www.lef.org.
Journal American Medical Association 2000 Jul 26;284(4):483-5
For
a more in depth look see overuse of medicine
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