----- Original Message ----- From: "Wojtek Sokolowski" <sokol at jhu.edu> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Thursday, May 10, 2001 2:59 PM Subject: Re: doctor disease
> At 02:38 PM 5/10/01 -0800, you wrote:
> >Damn, I knew it was bad but it is even worse than I thought.
> >Just heard on KPFK (the science guy show) that a new report (Rand, I
> >think) shows that doctor incompetence is the third leading killer in
> >the US, only outranked by heart disease and cancer.
> >--
> >Marta
>
>
> Sounds like newage witchcraft.
>
> Of 2,338,100 deaths in 1998, only 93,200 are attributed to "accidents and
> adverse effects" of which 41,800 are motor vehicle accidents. The
> remaining 51,400 death include all other accidents (industrial, plane
> crashes, accidental gun shots, and I presume doctor's malpracrice).
>
> http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/statab/sec02.pdf
>
> wojtek
=========
Misprescribed medicines probably kill more than 93,000 people a year in the US.......
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/980427/27heal.htm News You Can Use 4/27/98 ON HEALTH BY NANCY SHUTE Prescribed killers
You're more apt to die from prescription medication than from an accident, pneumonia, or diabetes. That's the unsettling news that last week came out of the Journal of the American Medical Association, which found that adverse drug reactions may be the fourth-ranking cause of death in the United States, right after heart disease, cancer, and stroke.
All drugs can harm as well as heal; doctors know that when prescribing. But even the researchers were surprised at the number of deaths, between 76,000 and 137,000 a year, plus 2.2 million serious nonfatal reactions. "We were shocked," says Bruce Pomeranz, a researcher at the University of Toronto who coauthored the article, which analyzed 39 studies conducted over three decades. The numbers are even more chilling because the researchers excluded cases where drugs were misprescribed or used wrongly. "It doesn't matter if you're getting the drug at the Mayo Clinic or in Oshkosh, Wis.," Pomeranz said. "It's not a question of quality of care."