Litt innblikk her, here we go :
" A definitive review and close reading of medical peer-review journals, and government health statistics shows that American medicine frequently causes more harm than good. The number of people having in-hospital, adverse drug reactions (ADR) to prescribed medicine is 2.2 million.1 Dr. Richard Besser, of the CDC, in 1995, said the number of unnecessary antibiotics prescribed annually for viral infections was 20 million. Dr. Besser, in 2003, now refers to tens of millions of unnecessary antibiotics. "
Kilde :Rabin R. Caution about overuse of antibiotics. Newsday . September 18, 2003 .
2a. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC antimicrobial resistance and antibiotic resistance—general information. Available at:
http://www.cdc.gov/drugresistance/community/. Accessed December 13, 2003 .
The number of unnecessary medical and surgical procedures performed annually is 7.5 million.
Kilde : For calculations detail, see “Unnecessary Surgery.” Sources: HCUPnet, Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville , MD. Available at:
http://www.ahrq.gov/data/hcup/hcupnet.htm . Accessed December 18, 2003 . US Congressional House Subcommittee Oversight Investigation. Cost and Quality of Health Care: Unnecessary Surgery . Washington , DC : Government Printing Office;1976. Cited in: McClelland GB, Foundation for Chiropractic Education and Research. Testimony to the Department of Veterans Affairs' Chiropractic Advisory Committee. March 25, 2003 .
The number of people exposed to unnecessary hospitalization annually is 8.9 million.
Kilde :For calculations detail, see “Unnecessary Hospitalization.” Sources: HCUPnet, Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville , MD. Available at:
http://www.ahrq.gov/data/hcup/hcupnet.htm . Accessed December 18, 2003 . Siu AL, Sonnenberg FA, Manning WG, et al. Inappropriate use of hospitals in a randomized trial of health insurance plans. N Engl J Med . 1986 Nov 13;315(20):1259-66. Siu AL, Manning WG, Benjamin B. Patient, provider and hospital characteristics associated with inappropriate hospitalization. Am J Public Health . 1990 Oct;80(10):1253-6. Eriksen BO, Kristiansen IS, Nord E, et al. The cost of inappropriate admissions: a study of health benefits and resource utilization in a department of internal medicine. J Intern Med . 1999 Oct;246(4):379-87
The total number of iatrogenic deaths shown in the following table is 783,936. It is evident that the American medical system is the leading cause of death and injury in the United States. The 2001 heart disease annual death rate is 699,697; the annual cancer death rate, 553,251.
Kilde :U.S. National Center for Health Statistics. National Vital Statistics Report, vol. 51, no. 5, March 14, 2003
Table 1: Estimated Annual Mortality and Economic Cost of Medical Intervention
Condition Deaths Cost
Adverse Drug Reactions 106,000 $12 billion
Medical error 98,000 $2 billion
Bedsores 115,000 $55 billion
Infection 88,000 $5 billion
Malnutrition 108,800
Outpatients 199,000 $77 billion
Unnecessary Procedures 37,136 $122 billion
Surgery-Related 32,000 $9 billion
Total 783,936 $282 billion
Using Leape's 1997 medical and drug error rate of 3 million(14) multiplied by the 14% fatality rate he used in 1994(16) produces an annual death rate of 420,000 for drug errors and medical errors combined. Using this number instead of Lazorou's 106,000 drug errors and the Institute of Medicine 's (IOM) estimated 98,000 annual medical errors would add another 216,000 deaths, for a total of 999,936 deaths annually.
ER MASSE MER og, men får holde for akkurat nå
" In a New England Journal of Medicine study, an alarming one in four patients suffered observable side effects from the more than 3.34 billion prescription drugs filled in 2002 "
Forster AJ, Murff HJ, Peterson JF, Gandhi TK, Bates DW. The incidence and severity of adverse events affecting patients after discharge from the hospital. Ann Intern Med . 2003 Feb 4;138(3):161-7.
