'The person most likely to kill you is not a relative or a friend, or
a mugger or a burglar or a drunken driver. The person most likely to
kill you is your doctor."
(Vernon Coleman) author, What Doctors Don't Tell You
Let us prey.
Doctors are the third leading cause of death in the USA every year..
You may be safer in an outdoord shopping market in Baghdad than you
are in an American doctors office or an American hospital..
The Journal of the American Medical Association recently re****ted that
as many as 106,000 deaths occur annually in US hospitals due to
adverse reactions to prescription drugs that are properly prescribed
by physicians that use them as directed by the drug companies.
From Dante Alighieri's Divina Commedia. It should be above the ****tal
of every hospital in America
Through me you pass into the city of woe:
Through me you pass into eternal pain:
All hope abandon ye who enter here
Doctors Are The Third Leading Cause of Death in the US, Kill...
Drugs and Doctors May be the Leading Cause of Death
Doctors are a major cause of death in the United States
Medical Doctors Third Leading Cause of Death in USA
Doctors Are The Third Leading Cause of Death in the US, Causing
225,000 Deaths Every Year
Source; Journal American Medical Association July 26, 2000;284(4):
483-5
This article was published in the
Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)
July 26, 2000
This information is a followup of the Institute of Medicine re****t
which hit the papers in December of last year, but the data was hard
to reference as it was not in peer-reviewed journal. Now it is
published in JAMA which is the most widely circulated medical
periodical in the world.
The author is Dr. Barbara Starfield of the Johns Hopkins School of
Hygiene and Public Health and she desribes how the US health care
system may contribute to poor health.
ALL THESE ARE DEATHS PER YEAR:
12,000 -- unnecessary surgery
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
These total to 225,000 deaths per year from iatrogenic causes!!
What does the word iatrogenic mean? This term is defined as induced in
a patient by a physician's activity, manner, or therapy. Used
especially of a complication of treatment.
http://www.naturodoc.com/library/public_health/doctors_cause_death.htm
http://www.healingdaily.com/Doctors-Are-The-Third-Leading-Cause-of-Death-in-the-US.htm
Dr. Starfield offers several warnings in interpreting these numbers:
First, most of the data are derived from studies in hospitalized
patients.
Second, these estimates are for deaths only and do not include
negative effects that are associated with disability or discomfort.
Third, the estimates of death due to error are lower than those in the
IOM re****t.
If the higher estimates are used, the deaths due to iatrogenic causes
would range from 230,000 to 284,000. In any case, 225,000 deaths per
year constitutes the third leading cause of death in the United
States, after deaths from heart disease and cancer. Even if these
figures are overestimated, there is a wide margin between these
numbers of deaths and the next leading cause of death (cerebrovascular
disease).
Another analysis concluded that between 4% and 18% of consecutive
patients experience negative effects in outpatient settings,with:
116 million extra physician visits
77 million extra prescriptions
17 million emergency department visits
8 million hospitalizations
3 million long-term admissions
199,000 additional deaths
$77 billion in extra costs
The high cost of the health care system is considered to be a deficit,
but seems to be tolerated under the assumption that better health
results from more expensive care.
However, evidence from a few studies indicates that as many as 20% to
30% of patients receive inappropriate care.
An estimated 44,000 to 98,000 among them die each year as a result of
medical errors.
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. More specifically, the ranking of the US on several
indicators was:
13th (last) for low-birth-weight percentages
13th for neonatal mortality and infant mortality overall
11th for postneonatal mortality
13th for years of potential life lost (excluding external causes)
11th for life expectancy at 1 year for females, 12th for males
10th for life expectancy at 15 years for females, 12th for males
10th for life expectancy at 40 years for females, 9th for males
7th for life expectancy at 65 years for females, 7th for males
3rd for life expectancy at 80 years for females, 3rd for males
10th for age-adjusted mortality
The poor performance of the US was recently confirmed by a World
Health Organization study, which used different data and ranked the
United States as 15th among 25 industrialized countries.
There is a perception that the American public "behaves badly" by
smoking, drinking, and perpetrating violence." However the data does
not sup****t this assertion.
The pro****tion of females who smoke ranges from 14% in Japan to 41% in
Denmark; in the United States, it is 24% (fifth best). For males, the
range is from 26% in Sweden to 61% in Japan; it is 28% in the United
States (third best).
The US ranks fifth best for alcoholic beverage consumption.
The US has relatively low consumption of animal fats (fifth lowest in
men aged 55-64 years in 20 industrialized countries) and the third
lowest mean cholesterol concentrations among men aged 50 to 70 years
among 13 industrialized countries.
These estimates of death due to error are lower than those in a recent
Institutes of Medicine re****t, and if the higher estimates are used,
the deaths due to iatrogenic causes would range from 230,000 to
284,000.
Even at the lower estimate of 225,000 deaths per year, this
constitutes the third leading cause of death in the US, following
heart disease and cancer.
Lack of technology is certainly not a contributing factor to the US's
low ranking.
Among 29 countries, the United States is second only to Japan in the
availability of magnetic resonance imaging units and computed
tomography scanners per million population. 17
Japan, however, ranks highest on health, whereas the US ranks among
the lowest.
It is possible that the high use of technology in Japan is limited to
diagnostic technology not matched by high rates of treatment, whereas
in the US, high use of diagnostic technology may be linked to more
treatment.
Sup****ting this possibility are data showing that the number of
employees per bed (full-time equivalents) in the United States is
highest among the countries ranked, whereas they are very low in
Japan, far lower than can be accounted for by the common practice of
having family members rather than hospital staff provide the amenities
of hospital care.
Journal American Medical Association July 26, 2000;284(4):483-5
Originally sourced from www.mercola.com
www.relfe.com
Also SEE GANGSTERS IN MEDICINE
By Thomas Smith
December 23, 2002 NewsWithViews.com
Disease in America.
Some of the economics of Medicine.
Exceptions to the rule.
Takeover of the American medical Association.
Treatment instead of cure.
Insurance fraud.
Government coercion in medical practice.
What to do.
http://www.whale.to/a/smith25.html
Doctors are the only professionals that can legally kill you and write
your death certificate
Arrogant Doctors Can Kill You www.mercola.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q9yKjJVqHyc
Don't let a hospital kill you - CNN.com
http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/05/01/ep.avoiding.infection/index.html
EMail to your US District Representative and your US Senator
There are 13 health care lobbyists for each of the 535 gangsters in
Congress.
Drug Companies are Top Health Care Lobbyists 4/17/04 - ... and the
defining the positions sup****ted by lobbyists. Individual
Organizations with the highest lobbying
expenditures: American
Medical Association
Medical Malpractice Lawsuits: Do We Have a Crisis or Insurance ...
Last summer a legislative committee in Florida, another red state, put
insurance executives, lawyers and medical lobbyists under oath in an
effort to get to .......
http://www.reclaimdemocracy.org/articles_2004/malpractice_crisis_or_s....
..
..http://www.centerjd.org/MB_2007medmal.htm
SEE:
Prescribing Under the Influence
By E. Haavi Morreim
http://bioethicsdiscussion.blogspot.com/2005/04/drug-company-gifts-to...
Gifts to doctors from drug companies have implications for patient
interests.
http://www.scu.edu/ethics/publications/submitted/morreim/prescribing....
http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/262/24/3448
"That will be $120.00 Pay the nurse on the waty out and take two
aspirin and call me in the morning."
Dommer. I.M , MD
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