According to a May, 2016 study in the British Medical Journal, medical error is the third leading cause of death in the United States after heart disease and cancer. (1) The authors of this study estimated that in 2013, over 250,000 U.S. hospitalized patients died due to medical errors. Keep in mind that these numbers do not include outpatient services. Therefore, the overall iatrogenic death risk is vastly underestimated.
What can you do? First, it is important to take charge of your medical decisions. You must take responsibility for all of your medical decisions. You know your body better than anyone else. Therefore, you should be an active participant in your medical care. If you cannot make these decisions, you should have an advocate who can monitor your situation when you are hospitalized.
Also, when you are hospitalized, it is crucial to ask what each pill is for and why any procedure was ordered. Every single time. If you don’t ask the appropriate questions, you are exposing yourself to unnecessary testing in addition to possibly taking a medication that was inadvertently or inappropriately prescribed for you.
Hospitals are busy places where the nurses and other personnel are vastly understaffed. Unfortunately, hospital errors are far too common. It is best to question everything when you are in a hospital.
The best advice I can give you is to educate yourself. Educate yourself about eating a healthy diet. Learn about how to stay healthy. Understand the importance of maintaining optimal nutritional levels. If you take an active role in promoting your own health, you will lesson your chances of being prescribed pharmaceutical medications.
DrB
(1) http://www.bmj.com/content/353/bmj.i2139
What is not being considered here is that for at least 100 years the medical community has focused on cholesterol as a cause of heart disease. So, they essentially banned bacon and eggs and other animal sources of cholesterol. But, it turns out that animal sources of cholesterol are not digestible and go straight out the backside. Excess sugar in the blood is turned into cholesterol by the liver and this is what is clogging arteries and killing people. Cholesterol is also essential for healing damaged arteries, so removing it can make things worse. The answer to heart disease is to cut sugar and not animal fats. But the medical community still clings to unfounded ideas. So, how many people have died because of this misattribution? If the doctors had been advising people to cut dietary sugars instead of animal fats, many more people would be alive today. These deaths are not counted.
Tina,
Sorry for your tragic loss.
I agree with you that hernias should not generally be repaired at age 89 unless they are causing significant problems. If elderly folks must have hernias repaired, then local anesthesia is preferable.
I don’t think that diuretics and “heart” meds typically help those with CHF. Often they deplete vital nutrients such as magnesium. If I or my family were in that situation, I would have preferred nutritional treatment of the CHF with ribose, magnesium, acetylcarnitine, co Q 10, etc.
Yes, your father probably needed his DHEA and glandulars, and hydrocortisone in addition.
Big Pharma is part of the political agenda, but maybe you should look at who owns Big Pharma, who owns the mainstream media, who controls education in America and why they are brainwashing USA into socialism and ever-increasing government control.
Hopefully Dr. John will take a little gander at this story. To give a little input on iatric causes. Twelve years ago I lost my father to something caused by a doctor and a hospital that followed their own agenda. At the age of 89, my father acquired a hernia. Asked me if it should be repaired. Told him, I wouldn’t unless it was serious. He decided to follow through. Doctor wanted a stress test (running stress test). My father’s BP dropped and the doctor proclaimed congestive heart failure. First my dad had been given chelation treatments from the famous Dr. Cutler and his last echo showed no more cholesterol in heart. My dad had low adrenal function as I also inherited from him. I fixed mine and was helping his trouble, but huge stress will cause BP to drop if adrenals are not putting out enough cortisol. Told the doctor what he had and I was dismissed. Another test was scheduled 3 days later only static. No running. Techs could not get isotope into veins properly cause they rolled. Another tech, with frustration, went and gabbed needle put it in. Guess what not into the vein. No results from test but huge huge bruise and my father swelled up 3 times his weight. Doctor says, see I knew it. Put him on the typical drugs BP, heart, water retention and potassium. 3 months later with all their drugs no results and he was still swollen. My parents made a combined decision to have him go into the hospital to get this under control. I am sure this was suggested by the doctor. He goes in on a monday. I told him I would be back to get him out on the weekend. I arrive back in town on Saturday and a wonderful surprise, my dad looks normal. I told him I would get him out the next day. Now, just to add my observation to this, with him being back to his normal size meant that his BP was his normal. The highest it had ever been was 98/60. Low had been 85/50. Chelation doctor found this and put him on DHEA. When that was gone I told him to take adrenal glandulars. He did and was feeling better. Now back to the hospital. Sunday morning, as reported by his roommate. He woke up. Looked out the window and told him he was going home today. He felt great. Breakfast was brought in. Everyone knows what is given in the morning, usually after eating. Right the meds. If my dad was back to normal, that meant his BP was HIS normal–low. He had no glandulars or DHEA to take. Low BP and then BP meds, you guessed it. Told his roommate he was a little tired and was going to take a nap. His nap turned into an eternal one. At 9:00 am I got a phone call at my parents home and was told that me father’s condition had changed. I knew he was gone. WHO was responsible for that. Not us, not my dad. The people that took control of my father’s well being. Low BP and a high BP drug, right no BP. Four causes of death were given. The one I could not dispute was cardiac arrest. He was a month from 90 and always been healthy. Never took drugs. WHO is to blame. Iatrogenic was my father cause of death. No political agenda. Drugs, FDA, Big Pharma are the political agenda. The medical professionals who choose not to look at the whole picture and listen were responsible.
If half of what is taught in medical school is wrong, I’d be curious to know what is being taught that isn’t. I think this applies to conventional doctors though. The ones that really see the light figure out that just about everything you are taught is wrong, the entire philosophy is wrong. I think that this would be good advice if it included, now you have to use your heads while practicing and don’t be afraid to question everything and take nothing on blind faith. Then, if you are lucky, you can actually have your mind opened like Dr. Brownstein’s clearly has. You truly are a credit to the profession Dr. As far as deaths caused by medical errors, this of course doesn’t include ones caused when no errors are admitted to, and we can start with the direct stuff, how many people die from medications and procedures prescribed and performed “correctly.” That’s a scary number, the drugs alone kill 100,000 people in the U.S. alone, a holocaust really, and a worldwide one. Billions of dollars in blood money is made though so we look the other way. If the stuff actually helped people then we might say well it’s worth it. No one dares look at this from a cost benefit perspective, because the story would be a very ugly one. There are times where these medications may have their place, but these instances aren’t that common and for the most part we are drugging the people to death and laughing all the way to the bank.
Gary:
I actually agree with much of what you wrote!
Indeed I was brainwashed in medical school. Naïve young people are sitting ducks when they enter medical school. However, I have undergone an un-brainwashing process over the last 10 years.
I still practice as a general surgeon and still believe in repairing hernias, draining pus, repairing lacerations, and removing dead gallbladders and appendices. Nevertheless I am uncomfortable in allopathic medical practice. Some of my colleagues suspect that I am rogue, and have attacked me in a variety of ways. I hope someday to practice holistic medicine as Dr Brownstein does, and limit my general surgery practice to occasional ER call only (surgeons do the most good in the ER, and the least good when they perform elective operations.)
I agree that allopathic medical practice reeks to high heaven. We have no disagreement on this point. Above, I was only pointing out that the mainstream media and their allies seek to make the problem worse by their favorite tactic: drum up a crisis (the existence of medical errors), and push their solution (increasing government control, i.e. socialized medicine.)
Dear John-
There are more well-informed laymen than criminal doctors out there.
In spite of your best efforts to convince people otherwise-
You have been brainwashed by your whore master Big Pharma when you entered medical school. Worse yet, you have failed to educate yourself about the Practice of Medicine.
You and the rest of your white-coated allopaths have harmed and killed more people with your ignorance about human physiology, Nutrition and Biochemistry of Nutrition.
Allopathic doctors die at an average age of 56! (Liars figure but figures don’t lie.)
Indeed- most allopathic “doctors” are criminally negligent- and should be IMPRISONED! I should know-
I am the foremost Sports & Fitness Lawyer in the world.
Best,
Gary,
The hospital took away my thyroid medicine I had for 30 years. I have a low TSH I think due to my pituitary not making TSH and they didn’t test the free T4 or free T3/reverse T3 etc. I had Lyme/MS/Celiac/heavy metals/low Vit B12/low vitamins/good oils/low hormones/low thyroid etc. They took away all thyroid medicine/vitamins/good oils/Vit B12 methycobalamin shot/bioidentical hormones etc and said I didn’t need them. I was 100% constipation/blood clots from clotting disorder that kicked in when thyroid was low/Low temperature/legs swelled to 3-4X their size. They gave me diuretics instead of thyroid medicine. I could hardly walk out of the hospital ..no energy, but walked into the hospital with no trouble. I had Osteoporosis…took 1 /2 months to heal and took 2 months to heal my brain with now a daily Vit B12 shot. They didn’t give me Mg..said I didn’t need it even though Celiac/Lyme/antibiotics low Mg. I asked for B vitamins…brain was low in oxygen and they said we don’t have vitamins at the hospital. Eventually they found me found B vitamins and K and gave me Tums for Ca. They wanted me to drink Ensure for vitamins. I said no thank you. I got Celiac meals, but wanted to go home..was there 1 week in ICU due to crashing due to what they took away from me and 2 weeks regular. They attacked me and said be careful what you say. You may need to say it to the judge. They have an MS doctors report from many years earlier that had 20 mistakes in it and that doctor said I should see a counselor. They said I had no MS…but I did and it was due to Celiac…not the Lyme which I recently got. They did things backwards to what my brain/body needed. They thought they were saving my life, but they almost destroyed me by what they took away. Now my right adrenal is burned out and I crash in cortisol. I was glad they figured out it was Lyme and the first doctor helped at gave me a mutiple/Synthroid and Thiamine. I wish I had gone home and not to the 2nd hospital where they took away my Alternative protocol totally and attacked me. They were the cause of the ICU. I was dehydrated/had Lyme/C diff/other ticks/ coinfections, but maybe could left after rehydration and things to clear the infections. I was not unconscious at my house, but was unconscious at the hospital. Without thyroid medicine it makes my immune system go down which is not good when a person has Lyme/coinfections/C diff. I had no shower for 3 weeks. They hosed me down just before I left the hospital. I could hardly walk/drive my car for 1 1/2 months after the hospital. I wish there were Alternative ER’s and hospitals/nursing homes that would honor Alternative doctor protocols which were my life support and I didn’t want taken away.
addendum: my other comment was under Dr Brownstein’s blog post “congress should be shamed”, and began with the words “for Colette Harmer…”
Well, I am the MD (surgeon) who stepped into a hornet’s nest. I think that I have the right to reply:
1. Helene, I know it is your body, but when you are under anesthesia, if you need to guide me as to whether I have appropriately dissected the triangle of Calot, to read the cholangiogram for me, or to distinguish the iliohypogastric nerve from a fragment of internal oblique muscle — then things are pretty pathetic indeed. If I am that bad, then you had better get a different doctor. You entrust your body to airline pilots, but I don’t think any of you tell them how to fly the plane.
I do see myself as the servant of the patient. I spend much more time than the average MD, in educating my patients. I go out of my way to respect their wishes and autonomy. Power and ego mean nothing to me. I am ashamed that many MDs are egotistical tyrants.
2. Ira Goodman: well, I am an MD FACS as well. Unfortunately, your attacks against me are ad hominem in nature. Re-read my last paragraph, and then review my comment from several days ago on a recent vaccine post of Dr Brownstein’s. Then you can evaluate how far my head is stuck into sand.
3. Bridget: I agree completely in having “someone invested in a continuum of care” for the patient. I have given my life-blood over the years to be just such a person. My first 5 years in practice, I was typically on duty every 2nd-3rd weekend, but nevertheless went in on my weekends off to round on my higher-risk postop patients. Now I have no partners, and am available to my patients close to 365 days a year.
4. I will reiterate my MAIN POINT, since apparently nobody caught it: when the socialist mainstream media is blasting away, year after year, at the largely socialist medical profession, it is because the medical profession is NOT SOCIALIST ENOUGH! The socialist media does not love you! They are the same folks who ridicule anti-vaxxing parents up one side of the moon and down the other. The socialists took over large parts of the medical profession a) at the time of the Flexner report, circa 1907; b) in the 1960s, with CMS/Medicare/Medicaid; c) most recently, with several pieces of Obama legislation. Nevertheless, their hold on MDs and RNs is not 100%, and they want 100% control. So they loudly decry the droves of Americans slain by medical errors, so you at the ballot box will give them more control over MDs and RNs, at which point they will put the holistic MDs out of business, put the flu vaccine in the water supply, etc. They don’t love you at all.
5. The propaganda studies cited by the mainstream media actually don’t catch most medical errors. When nursing and physical therapy allow postop grannies and grandpas to rot in bed, nobody calls that a medical error. When nursing staff lovingly over-narcotize granny and grandpa to relieve their surgical pain, or give them Valium for their insomnia and agitation, and end up giving them pneumonia instead, nobody calls that a medical error. There is no accountability for all sorts of medical errors, and many of them will not be visible to anyone but a seasoned doctor. I have spent countless years of my life trying to defend my patients against medical errors — I know what I am talking about. You less-informed laymen should give a touch of respect to the 20 years of my life that I have spent in hospitals trying to achieve excellence for a host of very ordinary people.
Dr John, it is not your case; it is mine, as it’s my body. You are paid to give your opinions as a medical expert. But I’m in charge of my care, understand that from the beginning. It is my responsibility to educate myself and make decisions. Do not foster the expert syndrome where laypeople are patted on the head and told to just leave it to the experts. Get over the loss of power and ego.
When practitioners go back to seeing themselves as servants instead of tyrants, healthcare will reform. IOW it ain’t gonna happen.
Unfortunately, My mom was slowly dying because a Catheter was left and Forgotten so in this case it wasn’t a Medical Drug. My mom’s body was slowly shutting down, but prior to going to the hospital she wasn’t eating. I was a student in college and didn’t have the time for a litigation case.
Any one interested can read this short but informative interview with “Dr. Martin Makary of Johns Hopkins, the report’s author, about why medical errors are usually ignored and how patients and doctors can try to avoid them. … Dr. Martin Makary, is a professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine who led the research …”
Transcript and video of the interview on the PBS Newshour are at this link: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/is-fatal-medical-error-a-leading-cause-of-death/
Unfortunately, the advice to question everything may be impossible for those who are seriously ill, who lack stamina and are in pain. Doctors will resist. So you must have an advocate with you at all times during your outpatient visits and your hospital stay. This is also nearly impossible. It seems the good Dr. B should target medical associations and medical schools.
As a nurse of 37 years, I have seen SO many patients just do what the doctor orders; i.e., respiratory failure in end stage COPD patient…”it’s just a little tube that we put in to help them breathe…we may need to press on their chest to help pump their heart if it stops…” As a nurse, I have had to be the last one out of the room to tell the family the “Paul Harvey rest of the story!”
I have advocated with truth in so many instances…my best friends father had stage IV small cell lung cancer with metastasis to the liver and brain. He was already in liver failure, he was receiving palliative radiation to the brain tumors to decrease seizures. The oncologist told him a bold faced lie in the presence of both his daughter, him and myself. She told him that she could cure him with the chemotherapy. He told her yes to starting chemo. She never even looked at him. We had his arms wrapped in barriers because they were so swollen and weeping. I asked her about a medport, knowing that his arms were edematous that they would never be able to start a peripheral line, she said it wasn’t necessary because her nurses could start an IV in anyone. This was on a Friday, she wanted to start the chemo on the following Monday. Needless to say, my clinical assessment of the situation was that he would not live through the weekend. I shared this with his daughter. The following morning, he was in flash pulmonary edema, I was able to meet him at the ED prior to his daughter getting there, called her and got her permission to ensure that he was comfortable…I requested morphine to be given, he was struggling for every breath until he received the morphine, he relaxed, his daughter was able to see him peaceful and he lasted a few more hours…
YES, everyone needs an advocate…YES, everyone needs to questions and truly give informed consent…I have SO many stories that you would never believe…even physicians doing procedures because they patients had “good insurance.” It is a travesty, truly iatrogenic deaths are on the rise!
To reply to John – it’s not about all your hospitalized patients “arguing” with you over “every little decision” you make. It’s about all your patients asking what you’re doing to be informed (if you’re not already telling them why). It’s about your patients questioning the nurse who brings pills. It’s about doctors other than you who come in for other necessary reasons & want to add to your orders – one would need to be informed about their orders.
I’ve had experiences that after I’ve filled out a history, they don’t pay attention to my history & want to give me something that is contraindicated – but I don’t allow it because I ask what’s going on.
I am a nurse & any time I’ve been a patient, I have NEVER had a doctor who orders meds or a nurse who gives meds offer to say what the drug is – the doc simply says I’m going to order you something for such & such. [The only exception to that is when I see my Holistic Doctor – then totally every thing is explained!]
Cruz Roja (Red Cross) is available in Mexico for minimal medical expense. For anything major, I would return to the US and use Medicare + Medicare Supplement.
I am having left hip pain with difficulty walking and they took 2 x-rays. My left hip area is in rather sad shape.
Tomorrow, I will see an unusual specialist here in Puerto Vallarta to get more feedback. He is a surgeon who specializes in this kind of situation AND the chiropractor who has actually helped me some likes him a lot. I am curious what he will tell me.
I looked at his web site and some of what they do in hip repair MIGHT bring on dementia. Not going to be easy to decide what to do in the near future.
Hospitals now have Hospitalists on staff. I suspect these physicians are more willing to order various drugs/tests than your own physician might do. That might make Dr. B’s suggestions even more relevant.
I am also a practicing physician. I trained 40 years ago(!). I have always been well and I managed to stay far away from medical professionals because of what I thought were shortsighted perspectives. The few illnesses I did get I took care of with a change in diet, nutritional supplements, and functional medicine practitioners. My 99 year old mother came to live near me about 6 years ago and I knew it was going to be trouble. She is totally in the medical system and I watched them do some of the most stupid things, things that would be bound to give a 93 year old problems. I watched them just let her get pneumonia with very desultory attention to antibiotics. Their handling of her blood pressure just begged for a stroke to happen. It seemed to me that they were trying to kill her. In the end, I took her out of the hospital and took care of her myself at home. I do not see how you can give anyone advice that will overcome the impact of this profoundly flawed system. I do not know what medial professionals are thinking but it certainly was not the way I was trained. There are big problems with the kind of pharmaceutical centered medicine we have today and I am astonished that so many intelligent people are selling out to it. It’s a terrible thing not to be able to trust you doctor or the medical system.
At my medical school graduation in 1978, we were told, “Half of everything you have been taught is wrong. But we don’t know which half!” If half of what you know is wrong, aren’t you likely to be doing more harm than good? Apparently so.
Doubtless ThePowersThatBe within the Med-Industrial Complex will try and spin such studies for their own purposes, but at the end of the day, They are losing their hold on “healthcare” in the US exactly because of the failure of the present allopathic, Big Pharma based approach to disease and injury. This cannot be hidden any longer, thanks to the internet and brave alternative practitioners. Dr. Brownstein is correct. The secret to changing the system is for every person to educate themselves and become their own doctor – or, at least, advocate. The resources are there for all to use.
As to the specter of “socialized medicine”, that battle was lost decades ago and we have had a socialized – corporatized – system in place throughout my 40 years of practice. It has worsened considerably in that time and, I fear, will deteriorate further for a bit longer – BUT, the end of this madness is within sight. The Establishment approach to healthcare is a failed paradigm and is simply not sustainable.
John,
Your viewpoint is typical of practicing physicians and reflects nothing more than cognitive dissonance, mere assertion, and is irrational. In other words you are wrong. There is an enormous amount of mainstream literature on this subject that, if anything is understated. Studies have shown that under 5% of ADRS (adverse drug reactions) are ever formally reported. The same can be said about surgical errors, hospital infections, poorly advised treatments, overdiagnosis, overtreatment, etc etc. The fact is that the great majority of practitioners are not spending the time to really get to know their patients and therefore perform interventions that harm rather than help. Furthermore, most of these error studies focus only on desth, not morbidity. If morbidity (sickness) is considered, the numbers would be astronomical. I believe inappropriate medical care with its’ powerful tools is the leading cause of death and morbidity in the country. Period. There is no question that targeted interventions can be miraculously helpful under the right circumstances. More often than not however they are misapplied, poorly considered, and on balance cause much more harm than good. Practicing conventional physicians will never agree with this since their very identity is at stake. The conflict of interest is obvious. You cannot expect an objective viewpoint from them. There is much more than can and needs to be said about this subject but please try to take your head out if the sand and open your eyes if you can.
Ira L Goodman, MD FACS, ABIHM FAARM
I wholeheartedly agree about advocating for your own wellness prior to any crisis….but if the situation comes up where you are in the hospital I would say the number one thing you can do is make sure you HAVE SOMEONE WITH YOU who is listening closely and helping to ask the questions. As a patient who is feeling so unwell you are not in the right mindset to catch the errors. @Dr. John, in my experience, most doctors make attempts to explain and make sure the patient and family understand the medication and procedures they are recommending but the file becomes large and services aren’t canceled and nurses don’t catch the changes. When my MIL was admitted for kidney infection and pneumonia I was there and personally caught over 15 mistakes that would have occurred had I not been paying attention. Hopefully they weren’t mistakes that would have resulted in death but mistakes nevertheless (ex. the doc had ordered to stop respiratory therapy but the respiratory therapist wasn’t notified, or the doc had ordered to stop a certain medication and the nurses didn’t catch it – this occurred at the best local hospital). My point is that it’s not always about grilling the doc on his/her medical choices but rather having someone who is personally invested in a continuum of care for that specific patient.
Let me tell you I could every easily have been one of those who didn’t make it out of an ER in Colorado back in 11/90. When I left that hospital 6 days after being taken there by ambulance to the ER, I was sicker than when I walked in. I could have died there but I got this ‘second chance’ and I WILL NOT allow medical personnel a second chance to try it all over again.
I won’t go into much detail regarding my personal experience, but will say that while in the ER with my issue, unable to move anything but my eyeballs, but I could see and hear everything that was being done in the ER to ‘save’ my life. It was a horrifying experience and a humbling one all at the same time since I have to literally surrender large pieces of my ego and just let those people in the ER do whatever it was that assumed would help me.
Not one of those professional persons ever came to my eyes to ask me ‘yes or no’ questions I could have blinked my eyes in response to. They blew up my left lung like a balloon trying to save my life assuming I”d had a seizure when I hadn’t. No history of seizures in my whole life. They ripped out my dentures and my jaw was locked up too tightly to make it easier to get a stiff air tube down my throat. They tore me internally with that hose unnecessarily. I had to learn to chew food all over again in the subsequent months. I was nearly breathing in my own regurgitation(sp) while a nurse patiently had a mask on my face giving me assumed needed air. They adiministered a huge valium shot to ‘unlock’ my horribly drawn up(very tight fetal position) body. Later I was given a prescription for dylantin(sp) but my inner voice said not to take it it would do me more harm than good, so I didn’t. Imagine getting medical advice from one’s inner wisdom????? over a medical professionals that was right?!
It doesn’t end there tho. I was eventually handcuffed to the hospital bed because I was trying to take out the air tube they had inserted. It was inserted too far down into my body and was responsible for my left lung being turned into a balloon. They had taped my other nostil shut, so it was hard to get air. A friend visiting me cut a small hole in that nostril’s tape so I could breathe. It keeps on going. The temperature of the air being ‘fed to me’ would change from cool and pleasant to too warm and would dry me out inside and I tried explaining all this to hospital personnel who thought I was making it up. When I got home back to Oregon from CO, I had nightmares for weeks following my hospital visit. It all was truly a nightmare but I survived and NO medical doctor will ever treat me again in traditional ways.
Oh while I was in my hospital room, improperly trained hospital staff broke the arm of an elderly lady in the bed next to me by not knowing how to move someone with brittle bones. She had had her hip replaced and left with a broken arm too. So just in one hospital room, this much medical history was made. Shame, shame, shame.
Had anyone come to my face looked me in the eyes and asked me yes or no questions, I COULD HAVE ANSWERED them!
Because of my experience I now will only seek out the help and advice or treatment of alternative healthcare practioners or doctors such as Dr. Brownstein. Currently I’m treating my thyroid with his Actalin product and getting great results, thank you Dr. B.
I think it is extremely important to have an advocate when hospitalized. Many choices require a clear head and often the patient has just come out of anesthesia and/or is on narcotics. Choices often require more knowledge than the nurse gives unless asked. The routine procedures aren’t appropriate in every case. While we haven’t experienced any life threatening mistakes, we have seen choices that weren’t the best for our loved one.
Every hospitalization involves many pass offs of the patient from one caregiver to another. Things can be missed. I try to be there when the doctors do their rounds and when the nurses brief one another at the change of shifts.
Dr. Brownstein- GREAT BLOG!
YOU are spot on!
Studies and evidence since 2006 show that iatrogenic deaths kill more than ONE MILLION PEOPLE PER YEAR! (eg. Google up “Death by Medicine” etc.)
Chemotherapy ALONE has killed more than one million people per year since 2000!
Statin Drugs have killed TENS OF MILLIONS of people worldwide!
As I say in my new book- “Fire Your Doctor- Hire Yourself! ‘- Allopathic doctors (NOT YOU DOC BROWNSTEIN) do not know their arse from their elbow”!
Thank You DOCTOR Brownstein for your hardwork and courage to tell the TRUTH about a corrupt medical business which should be stopped.
Keep up your efforts to educate a brainwashed population.
Thank you for all the people you have helped and all of the people that you will help in the future.
Best,
Gary,
I agree about medical mistakes, I was in the hospital in 2014 being treated for non-hodgkin lymphoma, I was very sick but my heart was fine and tested before the first treatment of r chop. I was receiving rituxan and was okay at 25 then 50 than 75 adverse reactions began. The chemo nurse was a new cancer floor nurse and my daughter made them shut it off or she would, I felt my heart was going to come out of my chest and I couldn’t talk and went in and out of conscious for a few hours, the monitors were tacking up and I had a fever degree bouncing back and forth. They stopped treatment that night and next morning finished the rituxan and the chop, kept having trouble getting air when I laid down. Two days down and heart doctor strolls in;”you had a heart attack”. Cancer doctors denying that their star drug could do that but heart doc stuck to his guns telling me that the toxicity from that drug did that so now I fight high blood pressure and meds where all my life I have had good low blood pressure. BE YOUR OWN ADVOCATE and have someone with you in case you can’t speak. This is a good hospital but your life is your responsibility too/ take that responsibility and do not rely solely on the professionals.
Right wing attacks on this study serve little purpose beyond further cover-up of a major problem.
Any one interested can read this short but informative interview with “Dr. Martin Makary of Johns Hopkins, the report’s author, about why medical errors are usually ignored and how patients and doctors can try to avoid them. … Dr. Martin Makary, a professor of surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine who led the research …”
Transcript and video of the interview on the PBS Newshour are at this link: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/is-fatal-medical-error-a-leading-cause-of-death/
Excerpts from the PBS Newshour interview:
“… how did we get to this number? … we took the best available studies, the data from the medical literature, and we basically came up with a meta-analysis point estimate, and then asked, where would that fall if medical error were counted as a disease?
It turns out that we learned that the CDC doesn’t consider medical error to be a cause of death in listing our national health statistics each year, even though the point estimate comes right in between number two and number three on the list, which means medical error is the number three cause of death in the United States. We’re just not measuring it. …
These are studies of hundreds of thousands of hospitalizations in the top medical journals. And they are updating the 1999 Institute of Medicine report.
And there’s broad consensus that the range is somewhere between 200,000 and 400,000. Our analysis came up with 251,000. No matter what number you pick, it is well above the currently listed number three cause of death. And it turns out that the reason it’s not being counted is that the system relies on billing codes to compile our national health statistics. …
They can die from diagnostic errors, fragmented care, preventable complications. These are not things that are captured in national health statistics that list of most common causes of death in the United States, that list is a big deal. …
We spend a lot of time and money on heart disease and cancer, but we haven’t even really recognized that the third leading burden on health in America in terms of death is medical error in its many forms. …
Our large research center in patient safety at Johns Hopkins has applied for numerous federal grants, and we keep getting message back, this is not within the scope of the NIH. This is not within the scope of the National Cancer Institute. …
If you look at the number of people that die from breast cancer, it’s about a fourth or a fifth of the number of people that die from medical care gone wrong.
And yet they have billions more because of the great lobbying efforts and the vocal advocacy work of that group. Well, it turns out that it’s not proportional to the burden of preventable health in America. …
studies in — even in “The New England Journal of Medicine” show that as many as one in four patients in the hospital will have some medical error that they experience, …
And it’s estimated that about half of 1 percent to a little more than 1 percent of these errors could actually be fatal. If you extrapolate the numbers to all U.S. hospitalization, that’s where this 250,000 estimate comes from. That’s not even counting people that die at home or sometimes through limited insurance networks or cracks in the system that result in deaths.
It doesn’t include outpatient office deaths or ambulatory surgery deaths. So, we think that the estimate is a solid estimate. There’s broad consensus in the field. It’s in that range. And it doesn’t even include a lot of other types of medical errors that lead to death. … ”
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/is-fatal-medical-error-a-leading-cause-of-death/
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Dr Brownstein, I have read the majority of your books and agree with the vast majority of what you say. However, I have to take exception with the studies about how many Americans are cut down prematurely by medical errors. These studies are propaganda pieces designed to facilitate increasing government takeover of medicine — i.e. socialized medicine. As a practicing MD, I can tell you that I don’t need my hospitalized patients arguing with me over every little decision that I make. In that case, they may as well take over their care entirely and leave me out of it. I also do not need more government oversight — I dare the Washington losers to come into the ER at 1 AM and roll up their sleeves. We’ll never see that happen.
I agree with you wholeheartedly that conventional medicine does kill Americans in droves, by inappropriate medicating/vaccinating/operating while ignoring the real root causes of illness and scaring folks away from real health care providers– but those propaganda pieces are blind to what you and I know.
Dr. John,
Medical errors do happen and, unfortunately, they happen frequently. I think all patients should understand all therapies offered to them, especially when they are hospitalized. Otherwise, they will be exposed to more and more tests and drugs, many of them unnecessary. During my training, many moons ago, when I worked in the hospitals, I witnessed many errors errors–such as patients given the wrong drugs.
I think that doctors need to make the case to their patients on why a particular therapy is needed. In the case of cancer, I always encourage my patients to ask their oncologist if the particular therapy is going to help them live longer. If not, then why take it? Unless the drugs are going to improve their quality of life, then why take them? I have discussed this with oncologists and their usual line is, “Well, we have to do something.” I don’t agree when doing something is associated with potentially serious adverse effects.
IMHO, the patients who get the best results are the most educated. It is important for the doctor to educate the patient on why a particular therapy is recommended to them.
DrB