> > 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."
==================
I forgot to add that the context of "adverse drug reaction" is a euphemism for
misprescription in many cases due to bad drug synergies. A Doctor may prescribe on
drug that's safe and another may prescribe one that's safe without checking if the
patient is on other medication or looking up synergies if the info is provided. It is
very difficult to filter data to exclude misprescription due to misreporting to avoid
malpractice litigation.
Ian