Loading ...Doctors (not to mention drug companies) may bemoan the lack of trust and faith in their offerings, but you certainly cannot claim that it’s an undeserved trend. In 2000, Dr. Barbara Starfield published a study revealing that doctors are in fact the third leading cause of death in the U.S., killing an estimated 225,000 patients annually.17 Her statistics showed that each year:
- 12,000 die from unnecessary surgery
- 7,000 die from medication errors in hospitals
- 20,000 die from other errors in hospitals
- 80,000 die from hospital-acquired infections
- 106,000 die from the negative side effects of drugs taken as prescribed
Unfortunately, few believed it, and no affirmative action was ever taken to address and correct the situation. So, when new data was published in 2016, showing the situation has only gotten worse, I for one was not surprised.
The study,18 published in the BMJ, concluded that medical errors now kill an estimated 250,000 Americans each year — an increase of about 25,000 people annually from Starfield’s estimates — and these numbers may still be vastly underestimated as deaths occurring at home or in nursing homes were not included.
Many media outlets, including The Washington Post,19 bore headlines saying medical errors are “now” the leading cause of death, but the truth is, modern medicine has been the third leading cause of death for at least two decades, that we know of. Research20published in 2013 estimated that preventable hospital errors kill 210,000 Americans each year — a figure that is very close to the latest statistics.
However, when deaths related to diagnostic errors, errors of omission and failure to follow guidelines were included, the number skyrocketed to 440,000 preventable hospital deaths each year. That’s inching ever closer to the death toll from cancer — the second leading cause of death in the U.S. — which is projected to claim just over 609,000 Americans this year.21