War.
It’s been going on for centuries.
The founding of the United States began with the American Revolutionary War, and there have been conflicts almost continuously ever since.
If we go to Wikipedia, we can see that the total number of United States military deaths from the many major wars (American Civil War, World War I, World War II, and so forth) as well as other relatively minor conflicts.
We can see that over 245 years of war, the total number of American military dead for all these wars and battles totals just over 1,350,000, with many monuments built honoring those people that died in those conflicts.
But there is an invisible war that’s been going on for many years. It’s not a military war, but a huge number of dead have piled up. It’s not the drug war. It’s not the war against cancer or heart disease. It’s the silent war fought by a very few that is hardly noticed. It’s the war against medical errors.
Of course, doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals save people every day. Emergency Rooms provide care for injuries, including falls, motor vehicle accidents, and gunshot wounds.
But there is a darker side to our modern medical system that rarely gets any attention. Injuries and deaths from the very system that is supposed to help them. To make and keep them healthy.
Just over 20 years ago, an article published in 2000 in the Journal of the American Medical Association showed that people are dying from the medical system –
12,000 from unnecessary surgery, 7,000 from medication errors, 20,000 other hospital errors, 80,000 from hospital-acquired infections, and 106,000 from properly used medications. A total of 225,000 people died from a system that was supposed to help them.
This shocking report showed that modern medicine is the third leading cause of death in the United States.
In 2010, the Department of Health and Human Services report showed that 15,000 hospitalized Medicare patients a month died from medical errors. That’s 180,000 people every year. [p. 19.]
In addition, serious harm occurred in 13% of Medicare patients. That could result in prolonged hospital stay, permanent injury, requiring life-sustaining intervention, and death. The number of these severe harms was approximately 130,000 per month or over 1.5 million per year. [pp. 18-19.]
In 2013 a study in the Journal of Patient Safety estimated between 210,000 and 440,000 deaths a year could be attributed to medical error in hospitals.
In addition, the study notes that serious non-lethal harms could be 10 to 20 times higher than this number – a range of 2.1 million to 8.8 million serious patient harms each and every year.
A 2013 paper in the Journal of Law, Medicine, and Ethics showed that:
“…2.7 million hospitalized Americans each year have experienced a serious adverse reaction. Of all hospitalized patients, 0.32 percent died due to ADRs (Adverse Drug Reaction), which means that an estimated 128,000 hospitalized patients died annually, matching stroke as the 4th leading cause of death. Deaths and serious reactions outside of hospitals would significantly increase the totals.
An analysis conducted in 2011, based on a year of ADRs reported to the FDA, came to similar conclusions: Americans experienced “2.1 million serious injuries, including 128,000 patient deaths.”
The public health impacts are even greater when milder adverse reactions are taken into account. Given estimates that about 30 ADRs occur for every one that leads to hospitalization, about 81 million side effects are currently experienced every year by the 170 million Americans who use pharmaceuticals. Groups such as pregnant women, elderly patients, and those who are taking multiple medications are especially at risk.”
In 2016 a study by Johns Hopkins published in the British Medical Journal showed much the same.
Over the last 20 years, as many as 4.5 million (using a base of 225,000 deaths) or 8.8 million people (if you use a base of 440,000 deaths) in the United States died from the medical system. The total number of dead in the United States from wars from the revolutionary war to the present is close to 1.3 million.
So the number of American deaths from the medical system in the last 20 years is 3 to more than 6 times more than all Americans that have died in all wars combined. We would have to have another 500 to 1,300 years of war to equal the number of dead killed by the medical system over the last 2 decades.
So why don’t we know about this devastating tragedy? Where are our supposedly best in the world health agencies like the CDC and FDA?
Dr. Martin Makary explains.
Since medical errors are not being tracked, how can we believe that the listed cause of death is really from a heart attack, cancer, upper respiratory infection, and so on? Or was the recorded death really from a medical error? How can we trust any of these statistics we see?
And what about all these government agencies that are supposed to protect our health? Again, Dr. Martin Makary explains.
So the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and National Cancer Institute don’t seem to be interested in preventing injuries and saving lives from medical error.
Even the CDC, which is supposed to be monitoring all causes of death, has utterly ignored this massive problem. They have completely and absolutely failed. So if the CDC can get something so huge, so massive, and so important wrong, why should we trust them about anything?
And where is the FDA emphasizing how many people are dying from medications? After all, 10 years ago, the FDA did an analysis concluding that there were 2.1 million serious injuries, including 128,000 patient deaths from pharmaceuticals. So what have they done about this? It seems precious little.
And where are our politicians calling attention to this? Instead, politicians often praise these failed institutions.
Do you agree these agencies are the best they could be?
And where is the media? CNN, MSNBC, Fox? Where is the clarion call? Where is the outrage?
So can you trust any of these massive institutions? Government officials? Heads of medical organizations? Are any of these systems really interested in your health?
Has the entire system been corrupted by power, ego, and huge profits? Do you think any of these institutions really care about you and your family?
Are the enormous numbers of injuries and deaths stated in these studies over the last 20 years accurate? How could we be absolutely sure unless we track them through a mandatory system? But so far, nothing is being done.
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of innocent people continue to be injured and killed without anyone noticing or really caring. Millions of families suffer and bury their dead, with the dead being laid to rest without justice, ceremony, or monuments. The hidden war continues in deafening silence.
Medical Errors: The Silent Killer in Medicine,
https://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-06-09-00090.pdf
The Battle of Hospital Medical Errors,
Is fatal medical error a leading cause of death?
The Hidden War