Wilberg on Wednesday - The Illness Is The Cure pt 40/46

Appendix 3. Death by Doctoring

“In the United States – where 40,000 people are shot to death each year – the chance of getting "killed" by a doctor is three times greater than being killed by a gun.” Ben Ong

“An article written by Dr Barbara Starfield, MD, MPH, of the John Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, shows that medical errors may be the third leading cause of death in the United States. The report apparently shows there are 2,000 deaths/year from unnecessary surgery ; 7000 deaths/year from medication errors in hospitals; 20,000 deaths/year from other errors in hospitals; 80,000 deaths/year from infections in hospitals; 106,000 deaths/year from non-error, adverse effects of medications – these total up to 225,000 deaths per year in the US from iatrogenic causes which ranks these deaths as the third killer. Iatrogenic is a term used when a patient dies as a direct result of treatments by a physician, whether it is from misdiagnosis of the ailment or from adverse drug reactions used to treat the illness (drug reactions are the most common cause). Based on the findings of one major study, medical errors kill some 44,000 people in U.S. hospitals each year. Another study puts the number much higher, at 98,000. Even using the lower estimate, more people die from medical mistakes each year than from highway accidents, breast cancer, or AIDS. And deaths from medication errors that take place both in and out of hospitals are said to be more than 7,000 annually.” www.cancure.org/medical_errors.htm

Indeed the statistics point to medicine actually being the first and leading cause of death. For in the 2001 annual death rate from heart disease in the U.S. was 699,697; and the cancer death rate was 553,251.

Compare this with the following table for ‘iatrogenic‘ or medically induced deaths:

Adverse Drug Reactions	106,000
Medical error	98,000
Bedsores	115,000
Infection	88,000
Malnutrition	108,800
Outpatients	199,000
Unnecessary Procedures	37,136
Total	783,936

Projected over a ten-year period this gives us a figure of almost 7.84 million – more than all the deaths from all the wars fought by America. Note also the projected ten-year statistics for ‘unnecessary events’ i.e. unnecessary medical intervention, along with the corresponding figures for adverse results stemming from these unnecessary treatment ‘procedures’.

Unnecessary Events

Hospitalization	89 million	17 million
Procedures	75 million	15 million
TOTAL	164 million

As Ben Ong notes, this table indicates that 56% of the population of the United States, have been treated unnecessarily by the medical industry – in other words, nearly 50,000 people per day.

ben.ong@cure-prostate.com

“The National Academies website published an article titled “Preventing Death and Injury From Medical Errors Requires Dramatic, System-Wide Changes.” which you can read online at ‘www4.nationalacademies.org/news.nsf/isbn/0309068371?OpenDocument’ or the book “To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System” at www.nap.edu/books/0309068371/html/ – These show medical errors as a leading cause of death. Based on the findings of one major study, medical errors kill some 44,000 people in U.S. hospitals each year. Another study puts the number much higher, at 98,000. Even using the lower estimate, more people die from medical mistakes each year than from highway accidents, breast cancer, or AIDS. And deaths from medication errors that take place both in and out of hospitals are said to be more than 7,000 annually.”

Reference:
www.cancure.org/medical_errors.htm