Medical Stats that might surprise you

Submitted by support on Tue, 04/24/2012 - 01:27

Medical Stats that might surprise you (for more info click here)

These stats are from an article by Dr. Jim Duke, an economic botanist, for years employed by the US Dept of Agriculture. He assembled a unique database on some 800 herbs, nicknamed “Father Nature’s Farmacy”

Handout in Botannical Medicine 2005.  Note these are old and out date - the new stats are even worse.

  • Number of physicians in the US 700,000
  • Accidental deaths caused by physicians/year 120,000
  • RATIO: .171
  • Number of gun owners in US 80,000,000
  • Accidental gun deaths/year 1,500
  • RATIO: .000018
  • Conclusions: Physcians are approximately 9000 times more dangerous than guns
  • Killer No. 1: Heart Disease 36.4% of deaths 750,000 (old statistic note NB at bottom)
  • Killer No. 2: Cancer 22.3 450,000
  • Killer No. 3: Ceerebrovascular 7.1 150,000
  • Killer No. 4: Accidents 4.5 100,000
  • Killer No. 5: COPD(lungs) 3.6 75,000
  • Killer No. 6: Flu & Pnemonia 3.3 70,000
  • Killer No. 7. Diabetes mellitus 1.8 40,000
  • Killer No. 8. Suicide 1.5 30,000
  • Killer No. 9. Hepatosis 1.2 25,000
  • Killer No. 10. Atherosclerosis 1.1 23,000
  • Killer No. 11. Nephrosis 1.0 21,000
  • Killer No. 12. Homicide 1.0 21,000

Expected toxic effectsf from market drugs, even when used appropriately, is estimated to rank among the top 10 causes of death in the United States and is estimated to cost more than $30 billion annually.”

The nearly $300 billion worldwide marked for pharmaceuticals is expected to grow about 6% / yr through 2001 (Thayer, 1998)(US sales usually run half world sales = $150 billion)

 Drug –related morbidity and mortality have estimated to cost more than $136 billion a year in the United States (Classen 1997) (Costs to American society = $150 billion)

Adverse drug effects may account for up to 140,000 death annually in the United States (Classen, 1997)

In 1990 americans made an estimated 425 million visits to providers of unconventional therapy. This number exceeds the number of visits to all U.S. primary care physicians (386 million). (Eisenberg et al, 1993)

Cost of developing a New Drug = $500 million (Thayer, 1998)

The GAO tells us 51.5% of 198 FDA-approved drugs reviewed possessed serious post approval side effects that were not known at time of approval. (GAO, 1990)

More than $11 billion is spent each year by pharmaceutical companies in promotion and marketing, $5 billion of which goes to sales representatives. It has been estimated that $8000 to $13,000 is spent per year on each physician.

85% of medical students believe it is improper for politicians to accept a gift, whereas only 46% found it improper for themselves to accept a gift of similar value from a pharmaceutical company.35,000 people are killed by firearms in the US each year (Dan Rather, CBS PM News, July 16, 1999)

More people are killed by falling soccer goals (25) or from airplanes falling out of the sky, or from nuts (100/yr) or college kids killed by binge drinking (200/yr) than are killed by herbs taken as indicated.

Death rate from various causes:

  • Herbs: 1:1,000,000
  • Supplements: 1:1,000,000
  • Mushrooms: 1:100,000
  • Food poisoning 1: 25,000
  • NSAIDS 1:10,000
  • Murder: 1:10,000
  • Car Accident 1:5,000
  • Improper use of medication 1:2,000
  • Angiogram 1:1,000
  • Alcohol 1:500
  • Cigarettes 1:500
  • Western medicine 1:333
  • Medical mishap 1:250
  • Iatrongenic hospital infections 1:80
  • Bypass surgery 1:20

Reference:

  • Classen, DC et al 1997. Adverse drug events in hospitalized patients, Journal of the American Medical Association 277(4):301-306 (Jan 22/29)
  • Eisenberg DM; Kessler RC, Foster C, Norlock FE, Calkins DR, Delbanco TL, 1993. Unconventional medicine in the United States. Prevalence, costs, and patterns of use. N England J of Medicine 328 (4): 246-52
  • GAO(1990). General Accounting Office (Apr.1990) GAO/PEMD-90-15 FDA Drug Review-Postapproval Risks, (1976-1985)
  • Thayer, AM, 1998. Pharmaceuticals: Redesigning R&D. Chemical & Engineering News 76(8) (Feb 23) pp. 25-37
  • Wazana A. 2000. Physicians and the Pharmaceutical Industry. JAMA 283(3): 373-380
  • Number of death in 1986, well rounded (MVSR 37(6): 56 pp.1988 The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Vol 281, No. 18, May 12, 1999
  • Friedman, MA, Woodcock J., Lumpkin, MM., Shuren, JE., Hass, AE, Thompson, LI, 1999. The Safety of Newly Approved Medicines: Do recent market removals mean there is a problem? JAMA 281(18):1728-1734.

 

NB: according to JAMA 2003: 970,000 deaths caused by going to your physician, i.e., wrong prescription, wrong Dx, wrong surgery

The next came in around 680,000 and that was death due to cardiovascular disease. Please note the numbers are rounded and I am doing this by memory. You can go to websites like Mercola, HSI, etc to find up to date info.

The point being the huge number of deaths caused by going to your physician. JAMA also printed an article claiming that over 50% of students that come out of med school are incompetent. This is the largest journal of medicine in the US and listen to what it says about its own people.