Finally! Woo proof of evil pharmaceutical conspiracy!

[Protocol53]

A few days ago, I received a message from someone explaining why pharmaceutical medicine is an evil, not to be trusted, conspiracy!

There is a JAMA article that this someone has never laid eyes on, but they found an excellent link that quotes said JAMA article! (Link of course is to "naturodoc dot com")

That link quotes the JAMA article, that Doctors are the 3rd leading cause of death!!!! They cause approximately a quarter million deaths in the US every year!!!!

Now of course, if one actually had this proof, the responsible thing to do would be prosecute those doctors. But, barring that, we'll use this "evidence" to propagate evil woo witch-doctory!!

This statistic proves that the pharmaceutical companies are evil, and bully doctors into using pharmaceutical meds, instead of using safer, "less dangerous" Herbal Medicine - which has a longer history anyway.

Add to that the fact that the person who wrote me has had 2 (Yes, TWO) bad experiences in the hospital (which could not be related to the mass amounts of herbs they're taking, without informing their doctors), and that PROVES the woo-quoted JAMA article statistic that they've never laid eyes on.

Actually, to quote the woo: "After the close calls (Insert name here) had the last two times she was hospitalized, close calls due to medical professionals' errors, I'm not surprised by those statistics."

There! Take that! Two close calls PROVE made up statistics!

 

[blutoski]

A few days ago, I received a message from someone explaining why pharmaceutical medicine is an evil, not to be trusted, conspiracy!

There is a JAMA article that this someone has never laid eyes on, but they found an excellent link that quotes said JAMA article! (Link of course is to "naturodoc dot com")

That link quotes the JAMA article, that Doctors are the 3rd leading cause of death!!!! They cause approximately a quarter million deaths in the US every year!!!!

Now of course, if one actually had this proof, the responsible thing to do would be prosecute those doctors. But, barring that, we'll use this "evidence" to propagate evil woo witch-doctory!!

This statistic proves that the pharmaceutical companies are evil, and bully doctors into using pharmaceutical meds, instead of using safer, "less dangerous" Herbal Medicine - which has a longer history anyway.

Add to that the fact that the person who wrote me has had 2 (Yes, TWO) bad experiences in the hospital (which could not be related to the mass amounts of herbs they're taking, without informing their doctors), and that PROVES the woo-quoted JAMA article statistic that they've never laid eyes on.

Actually, to quote the woo: "After the close calls (Insert name here) had the last two times she was hospitalized, close calls due to medical professionals' errors, I'm not surprised by those statistics."

There! Take that! Two close calls PROVE made up statistics!

Well, the anecdotes are as meaningless as you say they are, BUT...

According to the IOM, medical errors and complications are estimated to be the eighth leading cause of death in the US. They do publish their findings and there is some endorsement of the number by many medical organizations, including the NIH (link). These studies go back to the mid-'90s, and the government responded with a program by the QuIC: (link)

The claim that it's the third ranking is not an article in JAMA, but a claim made by Dr. Mercola, and is exaggerated by the simple fact that there is overlap in the groups he adds together.

It's a serious problem, but what should be taken away is that it isn't evidence that medicine doesn't work: just that an institution made of humans has an error rate. The same error rate would apply to other professions, including altmed. but nobody's doing these studies. Whereas, conventional medicine is very concerned about its safety and efficacy, conducts studies, and talks about it openly, as a tool for improving the situation.

 

[robinson]

nothing new here

Starfield, Barbara. Is US Health Really the Best in the World?

DEATHS PER YEAR:

· 12,000 - unnecessary surgery

· 7,000 - medication errors in hospitals

· 20,000 - other errors in hospitals

· 80,000 - infections in hospitals

· 106,000 - negative effects of drugs

250,000 deaths per year from iatrogenic causes
JAMA, July 26,2000-Vol 284, No 4

See also:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=2797019&dopt=Abstract

 

[Solus]

A few days ago, I received a message from someone explaining why pharmaceutical medicine is an evil, not to be trusted, conspiracy!

There is a JAMA article that this someone has never laid eyes on, but they found an excellent link that quotes said JAMA article! (Link of course is to "naturodoc dot com")

That link quotes the JAMA article, that Doctors are the 3rd leading cause of death!!!! They cause approximately a quarter million deaths in the US every year!!!!

Now of course, if one actually had this proof, the responsible thing to do would be prosecute those doctors. But, barring that, we'll use this "evidence" to propagate evil woo witch-doctory!!

This statistic proves that the pharmaceutical companies are evil, and bully doctors into using pharmaceutical meds, instead of using safer, "less dangerous" Herbal Medicine - which has a longer history anyway.

Add to that the fact that the person who wrote me has had 2 (Yes, TWO) bad experiences in the hospital (which could not be related to the mass amounts of herbs they're taking, without informing their doctors), and that PROVES the woo-quoted JAMA article statistic that they've never laid eyes on.

Actually, to quote the woo: "After the close calls (Insert name here) had the last two times she was hospitalized, close calls due to medical professionals' errors, I'm not surprised by those statistics."

There! Take that! Two close calls PROVE made up statistics!

I have serious personal issues with this nonsense being put out. Just the other a day I was talking to a person with a severe anxiety disorder and they refused to take medication for it. They believed that "alternative" therapy and belief in god was a better answer, but at age 33 if you can't even work or go to college you have to take medication!

I have my own serious issues with anxiety and depression, and without medication I'd be housebound and unable to even type in a forum; it's that bad. The brain simply isn't working correctly and well I admit the drugs aren't perfect as it stands now there is nothing better that is proven to help.
Instead of thanking "god" lets thank the progress of science and a couple thousand years of development.

 

[Schneibster]

Oh, the US health system sucks, Robinson; but the question is not, does it suck, but, would you rather have someone shake snake rattles over you while you barfed black blood dying of black plague?

 

[robinson]

Oh, the US health system sucks, Robinson; but the question is not, does it suck, but, would you rather have someone shake snake rattles over you while you barfed black blood dying of black plague?

No that isn't a question, it is fallacious reasoning. The kind of thinking that science eliminates. Any health care has risks, shortcomings, dangers even, and if you are paying for a service, you should be able to get all the information about it to make an informed decision about it. To respond to an honest look at a systems shortcomings with either glee or erroneous analogies, is dumb.

Honest figures, open research, about drugs or any risky medicine, is for the common good. It is not, as this thread would put forth, "proof of evil pharmaceutical conspiracy!".

 

[Schneibster]

I think you missed my point, robinson, I don't argue with any of yours, I just point out that the OP proposes the elimination of the entire system and the substitution of homeopathic and other alternative medicine for it. You might have missed that, which is what I was gently trying to point out.

 

[Squishua]

I just point out that the OP proposes the elimination of the entire system and the substitution of homeopathic and other alternative medicine for it.

That's odd; to me the OP came across as being against such remedies. It did, after all, acknowledge the fallacious reasoning behind choosing a snake charmer for fear of a physician's medical malpractice.

Perhaps a bit ambiguous, but hardly an attack on medicine - let alone a proposal to eliminate it.

 

[Slimething]

I just point out that the OP proposes the elimination of the entire system and the substitution of homeopathic and other alternative medicine for it.

I don't think he did. The OP was a tongue-in-cheek post about an unsubstantiated claim that the pharma industry was corrupt and conspiring against us all. The OP made a good point that a woo website was citing a JAMA publication without the citation.

On the rest of the thread, let's face facts. Physicians are people and they have their special areas of expertise and have their good/bad days. A medical system is what you make of it. If you have the freedom of choice, use it to choose a physician who has a good track record in your ailment. Also, it's on you to check out his/her recommendations via authoritative literature (which abounds). If you fail to inform yourself of information that is fairly well available, then you are relying on a human being who may be having a bad day.

I could only label a medical system as "bad" if care was unavailble or information was withheld.

 

[robinson]

I think you missed my point, robinson, I don't argue with any of yours, I just point out that the OP proposes the elimination of the entire system and the substitution of homeopathic and other alternative medicine for it. You might have missed that, which is what I was gently trying to point out.

I did indeed misunderstand you. I thought the OP was a sarcastic dismissal of the facts, along with fictitious woo thought about stuff, along with some obvious illogical conclusions, but then, I could be wrong.

 

[fls]

I think what needs to be taken into account is that the majority of those deaths are not preventable deaths and the errors are not avoidable errors. Studies put the number of preventable deaths in each category in the 20 to 30 percent range at most (below 10 percent for some). For example, a large number of deaths from adverse drug reactions are due to neutropenia from chemotherapeutic treatment. These are people that would have died from their cancer if they had not received chemotherapy. Some studies have shown no difference in the number of deaths between groups of patients that experienced a serious adverse event and groups that did not experience a serious adverse event - which makes sense once you take into consideration that it is the very ill, hospitalized patient that has the most opportunity to experience a serious adverse event and who also has the highest probability of dying.

Linda

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

I think what needs to be taken into account is that the majority of those deaths are not preventable deaths and the errors are not avoidable errors. Studies put the number of preventable deaths in each category in the 20 to 30 percent range at most (below 10 percent for some). For example, a large number of deaths from adverse drug reactions are due to neutropenia from chemotherapeutic treatment. These are people that would have died from their cancer if they had not received chemotherapy. Some studies have shown no difference in the number of deaths between groups of patients that experienced a serious adverse event and groups that did not experience a serious adverse event - which makes sense once you take into consideration that it is the very ill, hospitalized patient that has the most opportunity to experience a serious adverse event and who also has the highest probability of dying.

Linda

Exactly. Perhaps medical staff should make sure people who are admitted into their hospitals aren't critically ill, like most practitioners of alternative remedies do?

 

[Katana]

I love the, "If our healthcare system is so good, how can millions of people die every year?"

What do you want? Immortality?

Sorry that you can't get your wish.

Honest figures, open research, about drugs or any risky medicine, is for the common good. It is not, as this thread would put forth, "proof of evil pharmaceutical conspiracy!".

Too true.

The grad program that I'm in is all about improving our healthcare system and addressing these very issues (among others). Medicine is not blind to the problems, but the solutions aren't always easily- or quickly-achieved. They're also not always obvious.

This is what the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) is all about.

What it hopes to accomplish:

We will improve the lives of patients, the health of communities, and the joy of the health care workforce. We will accelerate the measurable and continual progress of health care systems throughout the world toward:

Safety
Effectiveness
Patient-Centeredness
Timeliness
Efficiency
Equity

Fairly worthwhile goals, I'd say.

 

[rwguinn]

Exactly. Perhaps medical staff should make sure people who are admitted into their hospitals aren't critically ill, like most practitioners of alternative remedies do?

All this reminds me of the "doom and gloom" that healthfreaks put on the rest of us.
If everybody would quit smoking, lose weight, eat healthy, exercise, take an asprin a day, whatever, we'd reduce the death rate.
Sorry, won't happen. Death rate is 100%. One to a customer. You arrive with the return ticket already punched.
"We're all going to DIE!!!! AARRGGGHHH!!!!!"

 

[Asolepius]

The claim that it's the third ranking is not an article in JAMA, but a claim made by Dr. Mercola, and is exaggerated by the simple fact that there is overlap in the groups he adds together.

Do you have a link or ref for the Mercola claim? I had this thrown at me when I was on a radio show last week. I can't find anything on PubMed (although the server there is playing up right now).

 

[pgwenthold]

I think what needs to be taken into account is that the majority of those deaths are not preventable deaths and the errors are not avoidable errors. Studies put the number of preventable deaths in each category in the 20 to 30 percent range at most (below 10 percent for some). For example, a large number of deaths from adverse drug reactions are due to neutropenia from chemotherapeutic treatment. These are people that would have died from their cancer if they had not received chemotherapy. Some studies have shown no difference in the number of deaths between groups of patients that experienced a serious adverse event and groups that did not experience a serious adverse event - which makes sense once you take into consideration that it is the very ill, hospitalized patient that has the most opportunity to experience a serious adverse event and who also has the highest probability of dying.

Linda

What Linda is talking about here is cost-benefit analysis.

For example, the statistics above list 12000 deaths due to "unnecessary surgery." That can happen, for example, if the doctors do an appendectomy and the appendix was not actually inflamed. It's possible. Complications set in, and the person died, due to an unnecessary appendectomy.

But the question is, what do you do about it? If the person exhibits all the symptoms of an inflamed appendix, you have to do the surgery, because, if you don't, and the appendix is inflammed, then the patient will die.

It's an issue of statistics. If the tests that detect appendix inflammation are 99.9% accurate, and 1 million people go to the doctor, 750 000 with appendicitis and 250 000 with pains that might be appendicitis, and they carry out the tests, that means that 750 people with appendicitis will go undiagnosed, whereas 250 people who do not have appendicitis will be diagnosed with it, leading to 1000 "medical errors," and this with a diagnostic that is 99.9% accurate.

Meanwhile, more than 749K people with appendicitis have been saved that would have otherwise died.

 

[fls]

What Linda is talking about here is cost-benefit analysis.

It's an issue of statistics. If the tests that detect appendix inflammation are 99.9% accurate, and 1 million people go to the doctor, 750 000 with appendicitis and 250 000 with pains that might be appendicitis, and they carry out the tests, that means that 750 people with appendicitis will go undiagnosed, whereas 250 people who do not have appendicitis will be diagnosed with it, leading to 1000 "medical errors," and this with a diagnostic that is 99.9% accurate.

I also included the idea that if some of the 250 that had unnecessary surgery died, perhaps they would have died from whatever they had that was mimicking appendicitis, anyway (i.e. even in the presence of perfect knowledge). And that some of those that died from missing appendicitis wouldn't have been saved by having surgery anyway. The collorary of accepting that treatment doesn't always lead to the desired outcome is that error doesn't always lead to a harmful/different outcome.

That is not to be taken to mean that error can be dismissed or that efforts like the one that Katana referred to are not critically important, though (covering my a** ).

Linda

 

[fls]

Originally Posted by blutoski
The claim that it's the third ranking is not an article in JAMA, but a claim made by Dr. Mercola, and is exaggerated by the simple fact that there is overlap in the groups he adds together.

Do you have a link or ref for the Mercola claim? I had this thrown at me when I was on a radio show last week. I can't find anything on PubMed (although the server there is playing up right now).

Here is Mercola's article (I had to provide my e-mail address to view it) where he makes reference to the JAMA article. The article in JAMA is a commentary, not a published study, but the author does state that iatrogenic causes would be the third leading cause of death. As Blutoski points out, one of the reasons that comparing numbers is misleading, is that the same death may be counted several times under different categories.

Linda

 

[Asolepius]

Here is Mercola's article (I had to provide my e-mail address to view it) where he makes reference to the JAMA article. The article in JAMA is a commentary, not a published study, but the author does state that iatrogenic causes would be the third leading cause of death. As Blutoski points out, one of the reasons that comparing numbers is misleading, is that the same death may be counted several times under different categories.

Linda

Thanks Linda. I have been asked to put together a short and punchy rebuttal, but what I have leaned from this thread is that it's not going to be short. The claim is continually being recycled, and I'd be surprised if there isn't a decently sensible analysis somewhere in the literature. The Starfield commentary just perpetuated the double counting.

 

[ysabella]

I had the same thing passed to me recently in an online discussion. One thing I found was this Pharmacotherapy paper, via Medscape, which mentions the other one a few times.