Dr. Prescribed Meds Kill 106,000 Each Year:
 

According to a paper submitted by Dr. Barbara Starfield and published in the Journal of the American Medical association, 106,000 people are killed each year from "adverse effects of medications" that were correctly prescribed and taken. (This does not include accidental overdoses or hospital mix-ups.)

The 106,000 yearly deaths are the third leading cause of death but it's not reported by the CDC because it's not a disease. So, if you search, "The top 10 leading causes of death" you won't find it. It almost seems hidden to keep it out of the minds of the average drug consumer. Has this been influenced by the powerful drug companies? It's not a disease but it's a health care treatment.

Could you link us to the original article, please. All I can find is something associated with Biogenic Medicine which is an alternative medicine group who published their summary. http://drsircus.com/medicine/sanctua...tual-hospital/

I cannot find either of the two papers that she published in Jama have any connect to this topic.

My source was a book. The title: "Whole" by T. Colin Campbell PhD. The copyright date was 2013.

Here are the two I found from Jama:

2010. p.32-6.
Scientific articles[edit]

"Barack Obama and his allies have done everything they can to bring more people into the US medical system. Changing that system has never occurred to these politicians."


The Starfield Revelations Feb
9
by Jon Rappoport


The Starfield Revelations « Jon Rappoport's Blog

Dr. Starfield's paper was publish in 2000.

Here is what I found out about Jon Rappaport.
I think Dr. Starfield is dead.
Jon Rappoport

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jon_Rappoport

• Jon Rappoport is an American journalist and author, currently living in San Diego, California with his wife, Dr. Laura Thompson, with whom he does much work advocating alternative medicine.

Here it is. Published 14 years ago in 2000
 

Many thanks, Rags123, your link really hit the spot! :BigApplause:

Can you find some more current statistics? Since then statins have really increased longevity.

So I am sure that these statistics have changed too.

In the Blog by Jon Rappoport there are excerpts from a December 2009 interview with Dr Starfield. In that interview she states, "The findings have been accepted by those who study them."

The findings have also been accepted by Dr. Campbell in his new 2013 book "Whole".

I haven't seen or heard anything in the news to suggest that anything has changed. If one would just read the entire blog, including the interview, it should become apparent why nothing has changed.

The burden now is on those who doubt the statistics to find documented evidence to the contrary.

So medical hucksters/salesmen should be believed without question. No thanks.

I cannot imagine how many would have died without the prescription medication prescribed by M.D.s.

It is not a sign of weakness, or lack of education or lack of good sense to consult a physician and take prescription drugs.

I know the premise that you ascribe to. But many of us don't do things your way. You have chosen to eat an all natural plant based diet. You take no medicine.

The bottom line is good health. Yours, mine, all of us villagers. I know you try to convert us to your style of living.

The only thing I have done to convert you to my way of thinking is to want you to buy yourself a television set. I just think you would be happier.

Does the cure outweigh the side effects? If, for example, you have high blood pressure and have done everything to control the blood pressure without any success, you may decide to take a prescribed medication. We know elevated blood pressure can be deadly. Because the medication MAY deplete potassium levels, do you risk a heart attack or figure out how to deal with the side effect.

Some people have a problem with the fillers in medications and simply changing the manufacturer, can eliminate the side effect. There are many drugs that can help a disease and if one doesn't work or has side effects, there may be another that would work better. It's communication between patient and physician.

These statistics are interesting and something I personally enjoy reading. Something for everyone to think about. It then gets down to personal choice and what is best for the individual.

I have been so conflicted about the conflicting information that is being decimated by so called experts. the latest being red meat going from a major problem to one steak a day keeps the doctor away. Too much salt and that not enough salt increases your chances of a heart attack. Today I read that the statin I taking is increaes my chances of diabetes and heart attack. also told that those blood pressure meds I'm taking are reduce both bone and muscle. What's a person going to do? Who can a person believe?

Its maddening

Statins may be keeping people from dementia too. That is a nice side effect.

A couple thoughts. The low hanging fruit in improving health has been picked. Sanitation, immunization, clean food and water and air. Those have been huge. Add antibiotics, anesthesia and surgery and the medical industry has had all those for 50 years or longer. So now there is just nibbling at the edges of life. Premie care, enormously expensive, and successful for many infants. Cancer care which adds years of life if the patient is young but not so much for the elderly cancer patient even if successful. So how can you live a little longer or a little healthier or both? Does lowering lipids help? Does weight control really matter, and to what degree? Are vitamins a scam? Is coffee harmful?
Proving antibiotics help in strep was easy.

Denny FW, Wannamaker LW, Brink WR. Prevention of rheumatic fever. Treatment of the preceding streptococcic infection. JAMA. 1950;143(2):151-3.

It involved a few hundred patients on a military base where there was an unbelievably high rate of rheumatic fever. Some got penicillin some didn't and the results were clear. It only was a few days of medicine and a few months of follow up. However the little tweaks to get those last few years better require years of medicine, or not medicine, or other interventions. Getting enough patients and the proper controls is phenomenally difficult expensive and the results are never really clear. So one study done with a different approach to the same question may get a conflicting result with another. Relax. Think of it as similar to working on your Nascar vehicle. All the easy stuff is the same for everyone. It is really hard to get that last 1 MPH out of the car. One time the tweak works, next time it doesn't. Different racing surface, weather, mood of the driver. Only after hundreds of ovals do you think you've got the adjustment right. But maybe not for next year's model or a different track. And sometimes that little tweak makes the engine fail. You didn't do anything wrong, you're just at the extreme edge of getting a little more out of the car and that can happen.

The public's expectation that we will all live healthy and forever is wrong. I am 100% certain I will die no matter what I do.

I hafta agree with Gracie. If 100,000 people died because of side effects of prescribed medication, how many people would have died if these medications had not been available. Ever wonder why the life expectancy today is so much greater than when you were born? Think it could have any thing to do with medical advances? Yeah, could be!
How many would have died of polio if there were no vaccine? Just one example.
Yes, the sky is not falling.
Just my opinion.

Can you compare the number of lives lost yearly from "adverse effects of prescribed medications" to the number of lives saved from taking prescription meds?

What Dr. Barbara Starfield was trying to point out in her paper was not the evils of prescription medicine, but the untenable position the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been put in. The FDA is the government agency responsible for making sure that the drugs in this country are safe and efficacious. I believe that in 1992, the FDA went from being funded by our tax dollars to being funded by the drug companies it regulates when the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) was passed. She was trying to point out that the budget of the FDA is now dependant upon the very industry it is supposed to regulate. I agree with her that this is not a healthy relationship.

Oh GRACIE , statins reduce cholesterol prodution but also reduces CoQ 10 production, needed in every cell, especially the brain. I believe we are the only country that does not supplement when taking statins. I brought that question to a cardiologist neighbor and he agreed. Barry, what do you think?

I read it in a book. It must be true! After all the author claims to be an expert.

Taking CoQ 10 certainly couldn't hurt unless you are also taking a drug that could interact with it like a beta blocker. As we age our CoQ 10 levels go down. Statins also reduce those levels. A side effect of statin therapy can be muscle pain or even a very dangerous condition where the muscles break down called rhabdomylosis. CoQ 10 seems to help reduce the severity of these possible side effects. When I was a working pharmacist I used to recommend adding CoQ 10 to a patients supplements, but only after checking their medication history to make sure there was no interaction with other medications, and always told them to check first with their doctor in case he felt the need to adjust statin dosage.

I do think that more needs to be understood about drug interactions. When my father died, my mother was prescribed antidepressants. Combined with the other drugs she was taking, they turned her into a zombie. I was worried she was experiencing dementia. We got her to a new MD, who looked at her list of drugs, and took her off half of them. Her health and state of mind were greatly improved.

Barry RX #43 post is exactly what I read was some of the problems with statins along with increase chance of Type II diabetes.

I also agree with most of what blueash said. While certainly I have no death wish I accept that death comes to us all.

I still believe this comes down to who you going to believe.

It took my cardiologist 3 years to convince me to take statins and blood pressure meds and these are at the minimum. and i am likely in the majority of the populations that resists taking any kind of medicine for anything at all. So belief in the individual making the recommendation is critical.

I also discount any claims made for or against if the person making such suggestions is trying to sell you something and the tendency in the world of marketing to over state claims for or against.

Now I have myself really confused:D

for those of us who just don't know what we don't know its kind of scary

Now THAT hit the spot!:BigApplause:

Does everything include a plant based diet and not consuming any oils?


Statins have many side effects, the thing is they develop so slowly you don't know they exist sometimes, ask me how I know.

Longevity --simple diet & exercise are a great way to accomplish that

Happened to me 4 years ago, now no meds vegan diet & no oils.

BP 118/70 was 150/87 took 7 months to med free and feel a million times better with more energy.
weight loss was was like automatic, I probably eat more food by volume than most folks but don't gain weight.

I follow Dr's Colin Campbell & Esseltyn

I think another part of the problem is that patients may use multiple pharmacies for their meds. Trying to find the cheapest deals on meds. mean no one pharmacy has a record of everything you are taking. So interactions can be missed. Like BarryRx said, when he saw something, he could make a recommendation...but if you don't know the whole picture you can't do that. So that $10 gift card for transferring a prescription may not be that great a deal in the long run.

AND...sometimes patients do not tell their physicians or pharmacists of the supplements they are taking. I have friends say "Why? They are all natural???"

I am not a fan of alternative medicine advocates who are always shouting " BIG PHARMA" while they sell you their stuff and I am not a fan of Suzanne Somers who misleads people about breast cancer and endangers their lives in my opinion..

I don't recommend that everything be believed without question, including your statement. Who are the medical hucksters/salesmen and what do you have to back up your statement?

Curious if you replace oil with anything, and if so, with what?

I see your point, rubicon. There may be tough dietary choices and tough choices for those who have been told they need to take drugs. I'm not a doctor so I can't really tell anyone what to do about the drug choices.

But I can tell you what I think about drugs in general: Personally, from my own observations, I think that there is often a trade-off. Multiple drugs can be helpful in the short run but they often take their toll over the years. At some point there's a price to be paid.

That's why so many elderly people are being treated for kidney failure etc.. It has been said that dosages have to be adjusted, usually upward, as years go by, putting an extra burden on the liver and kidneys. This whole process is unsustainable. Sorry I can't bring more cheerful news about drugs, but that's my honest opinion.

Vegetable broth or maybe white wine

Drugs are basically chemical compounds. Nutrients which your body needs are also chemical compounds. The origin of chemical compound is not what makes them good or bad, healthy or not healthy. The fact that a chemical is manufactured by a plant does not de facto mean it is good for you. Nor does the fact that the same chemical is manufactured in a test tube mean that it's bad for you.
Certainly medical treatments change as knowledge of human physiology and pathophysiology advances via scientific study. The advice of nutritionists similarly changes and such changes are not always backed up by sound scientific data.
If you can maintain your health thru diet and exercise and lifestyle choices, by all means do so. But this may not be successful in many cases.
Just my honest opinion.

Zoner, why wouldn't it be successful, please explain that comment.

The issue is not whether the sky is falling or not. The issue, to some extent, is why people have such a hard time looking at this fact without immediately trying to justify it. And why is it that most people aren't or weren't even aware of it? Why aren't more people interested in how or why this happens?

If a bicycle rider got run over and killed in the Villages, everyone would want to know how such a thing could happen. It would be tragic and God help anyone who would make the following comment: "The sky is not falling".

According to this article:

Can statins extend life, and if so, by how much? | Dr Briffa's Blog - A Good Look at Good Health

That's four months for those of us that are mathematically challenged.

And then there's this;from this article:

The Diet-Heart Myth: Statins Don't Save Lives in People Without Heart Disease

I'm not sold on statins. Especially since they have a tendency to cause muscular atrophy and early dementia. I wonder if the risks outweigh the benefits.

What I have read and my cardiologist confirmed is that statins have been related to increased risk of early dementia. I don't know where you saw anything that says that it prevents dementia.

Sure. Can you tell me how many lives are saved yearly from taking prescription meds?

For the people who are on drugs for their cholesterol - google fish oil. My last visit to the Dr. showed my cholesterol was up and the Dr put me on 4 1G fish oil capsules a day. Upon on google search of this I find it works great and that a lot of people will end up losing weight on it. The prescription is expensive at $280 a month. I will see what happens when I go back in a couple of months.