:: ::

How Safe is Conventional (so-called ‘Scientific’) Medicine?

From the ‘Scientific Medical Literature’-

Due to Adverse Drug Reactions a medical specialty, clinical pharmacology has been created. See “Managing drug induced diseases is a clinical specialty.”1 .

Journal of the American Medical Association-

• 106,000 deaths from properly prescribed pharmaceuticals in hospitalized patients due to Adverse Drug Reactions. 2
• 12,000 deaths from unnecessary surgery;
• 7,000 deaths from medication errors in hospitals;
• 20,000 deaths from other hospital error;
• 80,000 deaths from infections in hospitals 3

Vioxx for Arthritis is a Scandal that has raised doubts on U.S. Drug Safety

Testimony of David J. Graham, MD, MPH, associate director for science in the Office of Drug Safety at the FDA who had been suppressed by the FDA, November 18, 2004, to the US Senate Finance Committee

“this report estimated that nearly 28,000 excess cases of heart attack or sudden cardiac death were caused by Vioxx.”4

The Financial Times of January 2005, claimed that the number of deaths due to Vioxx made by Merck & Co. had been underestimated in the original FDA report. The FDA now reportedly estimates that the total number of US Vioxx deaths in the US may be between 89,000 and 140,000, and worldwide deaths are estimated to be between 150,000 and 200,000.

Dr. Richard Horton, editor of The Lancet, comment on the U.S. Drug Safety Agency - the FDA and it‘s Failure to protect patients:

“This discovery points to astonishing failures in Merck’s internal systems of postmarketing surveillance, as well as to lethal weaknesses in the US Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory oversight…But, too often, the FDA saw and continues to see the pharmaceutical industry as its customer—a vital source of funding for its activities—and not as a sector of society in need of strong regulation…the agency’s senior management is more concerned with external appearance than rigorous science.”

In a report entitled Modern Health Care System is the Leading Cause of Death

By Gary Null, PhD; Carolyn Dean MD, ND; Martin Feldman, MD; Debora Rasio, MD; and Dorothy Smith, PhD sponsored by independent not-for-profit, non-partisan research organization The Nutrition Institute of America:

“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 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.”

• over 784,000 people die annually due to medical mistakes.
• Comparatively, the 2001 annual death rate for heart disease was 699,697 and
• the annual death rate for cancer was 553,251.
• 2.2 million people are injured every year by prescription drugs alone and over
• 20 million unnecessary prescriptions for antibiotics are prescribed annually for viral infections
• that 7.5 million unnecessary medical and surgical
procedures are performed every year and
• 8.9 million people are needlessly hospitalized annually.

The Authors’ Conclusions: “When the number one killer in a society is the health care system, then that system has no excuse except to address its own urgent shortcomings. It’s a failed system in need of immediate attention. What we have outlined in this paper are insupportable aspects of our contemporary medical system that need to be changed–beginning at its very foundations.” I would add that it’s ‘in need of immediate Medical attention’, but that would be too scary even for them!

Carolyn Dean, MD ND, one of the authors of this report commented: “I was completely shocked, amazed, and dismayed when I first added up all the statistics on medical death and saw how much allopathic medicine has betrayed us.” I’ll say.

Download the Report: Click Here

As you can see ‘The Medical Bureaucracy, I mean the Emperor has no clothes!’ In view of this information then; why do ‘Medical Authorities’ hold ‘Alternative Medicine’ to a higher standard in terms of effectiveness and safety? You have to be careful of those dangerous ‘herbs’ you know! As to ‘Conventional Medicine’ being SAFE, SAFE is a four-letter word.

Look for Part 4, - Spin doctoring and Medicine?

————————————————————————-
Dennis Cutforth is a researcher and writer with over 35 years experience in health-care sales, marketing and research in pharmaceuticals and natural health. Visit his website at Get A Better Life Today.
————————————————————————-

1. Moore N. The role of the clinical pharmacologist in the management of adverse drug reactions. Drug Saf 2001;24: 1-7
2. A Meta-analysis of Prospective Studies. Incidence of Adverse Drug Reactions in Hospitalized Patients
Jason Lazarou, MSc; Bruce H. Pomeranz, MD, PhD; Paul N. Corey, PhD. A Meta-analysis of Prospective Studies. Incidence of Adverse Drug Reactions in Hospitalized Patients.
JAMA. 1998;279:1200-1205.
3. Starfield B. Is US health really the best in the world? JAMA. 2000 Jul 26;284(4):483-5.
Department of Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, 624 N Broadway, Room 452, Baltimore, MD 21205-1996, USA.
4.. http://www.senate.gov/~finance/hearings/testimony/2004test/111804dgtest.pdf
5.Vioxx, the implosion of Merck, and aftershocks at the FDA. The Lancet, Volume 364, Issue 9450, Pages 1995-1996 R. Horton