Study - Pharmaceutical Drugs Kill More Than Auto Accidents

[Scepcop]

http://philthegain.hubpages.com/hub/Stu ... -Accidents

Study Confirms Prescription Pharmaceutical Drugs Kill More People Than Vehicle Accidents

By Phil The Gain

Powered by a rise in doctor prescribed narcotic overdoses, prescription drug fatalities now exceed traffic deaths in America, a Times examination of federal government data found.

Prescription drugs surpassed automobile accidents as a contributing factor to death in '09, eradicating no less than 37,485 persons nationally, based on initial data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

While many key factors of preventable loss of life are decreasing, prescription medication is an exception. The death toll has more than doubled over the last 10 years, now claiming a life just about every forteen minutes. In comparison, traffic mishaps have already been decreasing for decades on account of huge investment strategies in automotive safety.

Public health specialists have applied the comparability to highlight the nation's escalating doctor prescribed pharmaceutical dilemma, which they define being a crisis. This is actually the very first time that drugs have accounted for more deaths than traffic crashes ever since the federal government began keeping track of drug-induced fatalities in 1979.

Pushing the upturn in deaths are health professional prescribed pain, stress and anxiety prescription drugs that happen to be powerful, extremely hard to kick and particularly hazardous when combined together or along with other alcohol or drugs. Being among the most commonly over used are OxyContin, Vicodin, Xanax and Soma. One particular relative newbie to the prescription drug arena is Fentanyl, a painkiller which comes by means of patches and lollipops which is 100 times much stronger than morphine.

These kinds of prescription drugs now result in much more fatalities than heroin and cocaine combined.

[craig weiler]

Those are just the official numbers. Other research shows that about 100,000 people die each year from prescription medication. And about 2.1 million are injured.
http://www.cancure.org/medical_errors.htm

Too bad they weren't placebos. They probably would have done more good.

[NinjaPuppy]

I must interject here.

Study Confirms Prescription Pharmaceutical Drugs Kill More People Than Vehicle Accidents
It's not the drugs, it's dumbass doctors and people. It's the same here as the argument, "Guns don't kill people, people kill people".

[craig weiler]

I don't think that's an entirely valid argument Ninjapuppy. Guns don't kill people, but people with guns are more likely to kill than those without them. The drugs have to have the capability of causing harm in order to cause harm. Like guns, using them entails quite a bit of risk.

[Arouet]

Of course drugs can cause harm. It's because they actually DO somethign in the body! And obviously we should try to prevent overdoses and minimise the negative effects. But the number to compare it to is not auto-accidents but how many lives are saved from taking pharmaceuticals. I suspect it is far more than 37,000!

[ProfWag]

Didn't we just recently discuss this in-depth? I'm pretty sure we did and I'm pretty sure I won the debate... (just kidding...again...)

[ProfWag]

[NinjaPuppy]

[NinjaPuppy]

[NinjaPuppy]

[craig weiler]

I read the article. It's an opinion piece. Like so many other skeptics he just assumes that he knows what he's talking about.

Please remember y'all that when figuring out the awesomeness of pharmaceuticals you have to take into account how they're typically prescribed. Or should I say over-prescribed. If you have a system where that typically happens you need less aggressive drugs.

[ProfWag]

[Craig Browning]

[craig weiler]

Craig,
Guns + People = death by gun. According to Wikipedia we have 15.22 deaths by firearm per 100,000 people. By that standard we're the 5th most deadly nation in the world. (Behind Colombia and South Africa.) Japan? .07. Clearly, the presence of guns makes a difference in the death rate by firearm.

As for prescription meds? Advil can cause the liver damage and antibiotics can seriously disrupt the digestive tract and cause a whole different set of health problems. Even aspirin can give you ulcers. There is a very real risk from pharmaceuticals and you have to ask yourself if they are worth it. If they are, great. Use them. But if any alternative medicine works, that's the way to go because there is so much less harm to the body.

My mother in law is an example of this. She is taking steroids for a disease that she has. Nasty stuff those, and she has been on them for ten years now. They are basically killing her more slowly than the disease, and they are causing her a great deal of suffering.

[ProfWag]