Fatalities and Deaths due to Adverse Drug Reactions

An article published in the July 2000 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) investigated a variety of factors contributing to American health including adverse drug reactions.

According to the JAMA article, the number of estimated deaths from iatrogenic (i.e. due to the action of a physician or a therapy the doctor prescribed) damage is somewhere in the neighborhood of 225,000 and 284,000 per year!

Broken down by category, using conservative numbers, it looks like this:

• 7,000 deaths per year from medication errors in hospitals
• 12,000 deaths per year from unnecessary surgery
• 20,000 deaths per year from other errors in hospitals
• 80,000 deaths per year from nosocomial infections in hospitals
• 106,000 deaths per year from nonerror, adverse effects of medications.

In 2005 there were a total of 2,448,017 total deaths in the United States which means that nearly 1 in every 200 deaths was because of drug side effects and about 1 in every 100 was due to iatrogenic damage.

Another study published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society found that the drugs with the highest levels of adverse reactions were diuretics, calcium channel blockers, nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs, and digoxin. Take note that half of these drugs are some of the leading hypertension treatments!

Doctors Killing Patients

Even at the lower estimate of 225,000 deaths per year, doctor errors still constitute the third leading cause of death in the US, following heart disease and cancer.

1.5 million patients given wrong drugs According to a report from the Institute of Medicine, at least 1.5 million patients are harmed every year from being given the wrong drugs -- that's an average of one person per U.S. hospital per day. One reason these mistakes persist: Only 10% of hospitals are fully computerized, with a central database to track allergies and diagnoses, accodring Robert Wachter, chief of the medical service at UC San Francisco Medical Center. This well-known problem is not new news.

AAA on teen drivers While no one can calculate the sorrow caused by teen crashes, a first-ever analysis released last week by AAA finds that crashes involving drivers ages 15 to 17 cost American society more than $34 billion annually in medical expenses, lost work, property damage loss and other related costs in 2006. Drivers 15-17 were involved in about 974,000 crashes in 2007, injuring 406,427 people and killing 2,541, the study found.

Teens text messaging while driving • Despite the risks, the majority of teen drivers ignore cell phone driving restrictions. • In 2007, driver distractions, such as using a cell phone or text messaging, contributed to nearly 1,000 crashes involving 16- and 17-year-old drivers. • Over 60 percent of American teens admit to risky driving, and nearly half of those that admit to risky driving also admit to text messaging behind the wheel. • Each year, 21% of fatal car crashes involving teenagers between the ages of 16 and 19 were the result of cell phone usage. This result has been expected to grow as much as 4% every year. • Almost 50% of all drivers between the ages of 18 and 24 are texting while driving. • Over one-third of all young drivers, ages 24 and under, are texting on the road. Teens say that texting is their number one driver distraction.