Doctors Are The Third Leading Cause of Death in the US

Posted on May 19, 2007
Filed Under General |

The U.S. health care system may contribute to poor
health or death.  According to Dr. Barbara Starfield of the
Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, 250,000 deaths
per year are caused by medical errors, making this the third-largest
cause of death in the U.S., following heart disease and cancer.

Writing in the Journal of the American Medical
Association (JAMA)
, Dr. Starfield has documented the tragedy of
the traditional medical paradigm in the following statistics:


ALL THESE ARE DEATHS PER YEAR:

  • 12,000  — unnecessary surgery 8
  • 7,000  — medication errors in hospitals 9
  • 20,000  — other errors in hospitals 10
  • 80,000  — infections in hospitals 10
  • 106,000  — non-error, negative effects of drugs 2  
  • These total to 250,000 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.

via Naturodoc

I have worked in health care quite a bit and it makes total sense to me.  For the most part, medicine is art masquerading as science.

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Comments

2 Responses to “Doctors Are The Third Leading Cause of Death in the US”

  1. Greedy Trial Lawyer on May 20th, 2007 6:30 am

    Physician, Heal Thyself - Please!…

    The supposedly superior private healthcare system in the U.S., the one that everyone says makes us the envy of the industrialized world, needs to focus on the third leading cause of death - the medical profession.

    Doctors Are The Third Leading Cause…

  2. hurt patient on September 10th, 2007 9:24 am

    This is going to continue until the AMA starts to really police it’s own field or we get another group that will. To me the way it is now is like having the rats guard the cheese. When I was hurt this way, privately several “professionals” admitted I was right. Publicly everyone denied what happened. Want to know what is destroying trust in the medical field? Lack of accountability is eroding trust. Until this situation improves don’t expect trust and public faith to improve. It is time for the medical field to see the 300 pound gorilla sitting in the middle of the room.

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