How to avoid Surgery for Cardiovascular Disease

simple,
get at the root cause, not Cut out the resulting problems.

See how one doctor understands and helps people to releive the root cause:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Z0kSdIoXsE&feature=player_embedded

Ten reasons why the FDA allows Cocoa Krispies cereal to make outrageous claims of boosting immunity

http://www.NaturalNews.com/027387_Cocoa_Krispies_the_FDA.html

Would You give or take 25 Aspirin in 24 Hours???

Of course not!! You know, your doctor knows, the bottle says that is, "NOT SAFE". Right?



Well, if it was 1918, and you trusted your Doctor and the Journal of the American Medical Association, and drugs were a lucrative market, You WOULD HAVE TAKEN 25 Aspirin in 24 hours!!! The evidence is outlined below, bold Blue text provides a quick scan read.



Now, Here is a question that I am asking myself, "Does that environment sound familiar to today's environment?" If so, considering today's lucrative drug market, The Journal of the Amercian Medical Association, Your Doctor's drug recommendations and prescriptions, etc. WHAT DRUGS ARE WE TAKING THAT WILL BE KNOWN TO BE HARMFUL or even FATAL in the next 30,40,50,60 YEARS?



Choosing to be a wise investor and minimize the risk exposure to my future Health, I've consider ed Naturopathic Medicine, where doctors first, "DO NO HARM" and medicines are KNOWN to not cause harmful or even fatal side effects. You are free to choose the same.

And now, the article, Enjoy! :

October 13, 2009
In 1918 Pandemic, Another Possible Killer: Aspirin
By NICHOLAS BAKALAR


The 1918 flu epidemic was probably the deadliest plague in human history, killing more than 50 million people worldwide. Now it appears that a small number of the deaths may have been caused not by the virus, but by a drug used to treat it: aspirin.
Dr. Karen M. Starko, author of one of the earliest papers connecting aspirin use with Reye’s syndrome, has published an article suggesting that overdoses of the relatively new “wonder drug” could have been deadly.


What raised Dr. Starko’s suspicions is that high doses of aspirin, amounts considered unsafe today, were commonly used to treat the illness, and the symptoms of aspirin overdose may have been difficult to distinguish from those of the flu, especially among those who died soon after they became ill.


Some doubts were raised even at the time. At least one contemporary pathologist working for the Public Health Service thought that the amount of lung damage seen during autopsies in early deaths was too little to attribute to viral pneumonia, and that the large amounts of bloody, watery liquid in the lungs must have had some other cause.


Dr. Starko acknowledged that she did not have autopsy reports or other documents that could prove that aspirin was the problem. “There was a lot of chaos in these places,” she said, “and I’m not sure if there are good records anywhere.”


But of the many factors that might have influenced the outcome in any particular case, Dr. Starko wrote, aspirin overdose stands out for several reasons, including a confluence of historical events.


In February 1917, Bayer lost its American patent on aspirin, opening a lucrative drug market to many manufacturers. Bayer fought back with copious advertising, celebrating the brand’s purity just as the epidemic was reaching its peak.


Aspirin packages were produced containing no warnings about toxicity and few instructions about use. In the fall of 1918, facing a widespread deadly disease with no known cure, the surgeon general and the United States Navy recommended aspirin as a symptomatic treatment, and the military bought large quantities of the drug.


The Journal of the American Medical Association suggested a dose of 1,000 milligrams every three hours, the equivalent of almost 25 standard 325-milligram aspirin tablets in 24 hours. This is about twice the daily dosage generally considered safe today.


Dr. Starko’s paper, published in the Nov. 1 issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, has stirred some interest, if not enthusiastic endorsement, among other experts.
“I think the paper is creative and asking good questions,” said John M. Barry, author of a book on the 1918 flu titled “The Great Influenza.” “But we don’t know how many people actually took the doses of aspirin discussed in the article.”
The pharmacology of aspirin is complex and was not fully understood until the 1960s, but dosage is crucial. Doubling the dose given at six-hour intervals can cause a 400 percent increase in the amount of the medicine that remains in the body. Even quite low daily doses — six to nine standard aspirin pills a day for several days — can lead to dangerously high blood levels of the drug in some people.


Peter A. Chyka, a professor of pharmacy at the University of Tennessee, said he found Dr. Starko’s theory “intriguing.” Little was known about safe dosages at the time, he said, and doctors often simply raised the amount until they saw signs of toxicity.


“In the context of what we know today about aspirin and aspirinlike products, Starko has made an interesting effort to put this together,” Dr. Chyka said. “There are things other than flu that can complicate a disease like this.”


Although he doubted that more than a small number of deaths could be attributed to aspirin overdose, Dr. David M. Morens, an epidemiologist with the National Institutes of Health, said the paper was valuable in that “it makes an attempt to look at environmental or host factors that may be involved.” He said, “We haven’t been able to explain all the deaths in young adults with the virus itself.”
Dr. Starko was hesitant to estimate how many deaths aspirin overdose could have caused, but suggested that military archives might be one place to look. “I’m hoping others will follow up,” she said, “by examining available treatment records.”

How important is H1N1? VERY IMPORTANT!!!

The Controversy / Confusion surrounding the H1N1 Vaccine and its mandate or not, is a VERY IMPORTANT TOPIC!

WHY?

This current issue is very important and deserves your Sober Attention, not because YOU NEED H1N1 NOW, but rather because it exposes several forces that act upon "Health" and "Health care" in the United States:

• Organizations that seek to manipulate and maintain Market Share
• Profit Driven-at the expense of your health and life-numb to your death- Profit Driven people and companies
• Unfounded medicine- sure its very well researched in Laboratories with Millions of $s invested... Does it help you heal, cure, prevent illness and disease?

Now, to everyone's main question, "Should I take it? or Do I need it?" To help you make this decision, consider the following:

Tom Jefferson, MD, is considered the world's leading authority on influenza vaccinations. He has authored ten reviews for the Cochrane Collaboration, which is the most respected international center that evaluates medical research. Dr. Jefferson has asserted, "There is no evidence whatsoever that seasonal influenza vaccines have any effect, especially in the elderly and young children No evidence of reduced [number of] cases, deaths, complications."

Dr. Jefferson further asserts, "What you see every year as the flu is caused by 200 or 300 different agents with a vaccine against two of them. That is simply nonsense." Further, Dr. Jefferson has also declared, "the H1N1 is not a major threat (this link is to an excellent short interview with him)." Dr. Jefferson has noted that Australia has just completed its winter, and there were only 131 deaths related to flu out of 22 million Australians.


The afore post, in gray, is reflected directly-without change- from the Blog of Dr. Steve Nenninger- http://drstevenenningerdailyblog.blogspot.com/

FDA, FTC threaten Dr. Weil over immune-boosting supplements for H1N1 swine flu (opinion)

http://www.NaturalNews.com/027303_the_FTC_America_vaccines.html

A pictorial guide to instant atherosclerosis

http://www.inquisitr.com/42141/bacon-cheese-stuffed-pizza-burger-a-pictorial-guide-to-instant-clogged-arteries/

Historical Data Shows Vaccines are Not what Saved Us

http://www.NaturalNews.com/027203_vaccination_health_vaccines.html

You are not behind scientifically... you are ahead.

Dear Class, You are ahead scientifically, not behind as some would like to argue.

Considering Homeopathy,
Check out this argument and compare it to what you now know about "ultra-dilutions" and the several experiments that we reviewed in Homeopathy Tuesday, September 29, 2009:

Taken from http://www.naturowatch.org/general/debate.shtml accessed October 9, 2009.

Article Titled: My Debate with a Naturopath
By: David Fowler

"A few years ago I retired from teaching chemisty at our local high school. The philosophy teacher there structures debates for his class. Each pair of students picks a topic and asks a local "expert" to participate. The most recent topic was whether naturopathy is more effective than "mainstream" medicine. The teacher recommended that a student contact me to debate a local naturopathic "doctor" and I agreed...

... I thought it might be useful to demonstrate the foolishness of homeopathy, which naturopathic schools teach in several coures. I displayed a flask with dark purple potassium permanganate solution in it. I told the students that this solution is poisonous, and that first I was going to make it stronger and then drink it. I took a few drops of this solution and diluted it with a couple of hundred milliliters of water. I told them that I was going to increase its strength by shaking it in a special way. I then took a couple of drops of this, and repeated the process. After doing tthis a few more times, I drank the resulting solution and told them to get ready to call 911.
Of course, several students were laughing at this, but I turned to the "doctor" and asked, "did I do this correctly?" She replied that each step with its special shaking was called a "succussion" and that basically I had the right idea. I remarked, "So it is possible to make a substance stronger by diluting it to infinity?" and she said it was. Her next remark was that she was just as astounded about homeopathy when she first learned it in school, but the point was that we didn't need to understand HOW it worked—all we had to do was observe that it does.
I tried to bring up the usual ideas of double-blind scientific studies being needed and the placebo effect. She replied that homeopathy works with animals that can't be affected by the placebo effect, and also pointed out that with her own child she observed immediate relief of teething pain when administered homeopathic medicine. She rejected the idea that a baby might be soothed by attention and even a few drops of water administered by her mother.

... I was both pleased with how the class went and somewhat discouraged. I believe that my demonstration reached some of the students. However, a few thought that there "had to be something to it" when these succussions were performed in the correct way, and a couple asked for her card afterwards and whether they could visit her at her office. ..."

Urgent lawsuit filed against FDA to halt swine flu vaccines; claims FDA violated federal law

http://www.NaturalNews.com/027205_vaccines_swine_flu_the_FDA.html

Health Insurance... Healthcare... Rethinking...

Health Insurance Isn’t Health Care

How often have you heard a politician say that millions of Americans “have no health care,” when he or she meant they have no health insurance? How has a method of financing health care become synonymous with care itself?
The reason for financing at least some of our health care with an insurance system is obvious. We all worry that a serious illness or an accident might one day require urgent, extensive care, imposing an extreme financial burden on us. In this sense, health-care insurance is just like all other forms of insurance—life, property, liability—where the many who face a risk share the cost incurred by the few who actually suffer a loss.
But health insurance is different from every other type of insurance. Health insurance is the primary payment mechanism not just for expenses that are unexpected and large, but for nearly all health-care expenses. We’ve become so used to health insurance that we don’t realize how absurd that is. We can’t imagine paying for gas with our auto-insurance policy, or for our electric bills with our homeowners insurance, but we all assume that our regular checkups and dental cleanings will be covered at least partially by insurance. Most pregnancies are planned, and deliveries are predictable many months in advance, yet they’re financed the same way we finance fixing a car after a wreck—through an insurance claim.
Comprehensive health insurance is such an ingrained element of our thinking, we forget that its rise to dominance is relatively recent. Modern group health insurance was introduced in 1929, and employer-based insurance began to blossom during World War II, when wage freezes prompted employers to expand other benefits as a way of attracting workers. Still, as late as 1954, only a minority of Americans had health insurance. That’s when Congress passed a law making employer contributions to employee health plans tax-deductible without making the resulting benefits taxable to employees. This seemingly minor tax benefit not only encouraged the spread of catastrophic insurance, but had the accidental effect of making employer-funded health insurance the most affordable option (after taxes) for financing pretty much any type of health care. There was nothing natural or inevitable about the way our system developed: employer-based, comprehensive insurance crowded out alternative methods of paying for health-care expenses only because of a poorly considered tax benefit passed half a century ago.
In designing Medicare and Medicaid in 1965, the government essentially adopted this comprehensive-insurance model for its own spending, and by the next year had enrolled nearly 12 percent of the population. And it is no coinci­dence that the great inflation in health-care costs began soon after. We all believe we need comprehensive health insurance because the cost of care—even routine care—appears too high to bear on our own. But the use of insurance to fund virtually all care is itself a major cause of health care’s high expense.
Insurance is probably the most complex, costly, and distortional method of financing any activity; that’s why it is otherwise used to fund only rare, unexpected, and large costs. Imagine sending your weekly grocery bill to an insurance clerk for review, and having the grocer reimbursed by the insurer to whom you’ve paid your share. An expensive and wasteful absurdity, no?
Is this really a big problem for our health-care system? Well, for every two doctors in the U.S., there is now one health-insurance employee—more than 470,000 in total. In 2006, it cost almost $500 per person just to administer health insurance. Much of this enormous cost would simply disappear if we paid routine and predictable health-care expenditures the way we pay for everything else—by ourselves.

Read the whole story at http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200909/health-care/2
thanks to Ashley Russell for sharing this article!

Steven M. Sabatier

Evidence Based Medicine

In regards to the debate found at http://nationalcenterforhomeopathy.org/media/in_the_news_view.jsp?id=789 accessed 9-9-09, I am now rethinking what constitutes "Evidence Based Medicine".

As seen in the debate, some doctors and medical literature argues that Homeopathy is not evidence based.

Wow! Historical accounts during times of epidemic. Now that is evidence based. Homeopathy is not missing "Evidence". Seems like there is plenty of evidence (see below for a sample). What Homeopathy is missing is people who understand the mechanism in terms of conventional medicine and newtonian physics. Some want a meachanism, one that fits into their current understandings.

Will a mechanim ever be understood? Does it matter?
Surely it matters for "Mechanism-Based" medicine. Does it matter for evidence based medicine? I think that what matters for Evidence Based Medicine is *** EVIDENCE!***


Andre Saine, ND
With more than 25,000 volumes, the homeopathic literature is very rich in reports about the results obtained by homeopathy during epidemics. Results obtained by homeopathy during epidemics reveal a very important and clear constancy--namely, a very low mortality rate. This constancy remains, regardless of the physician, institution, time, place, or type of epidemical disease, including diseases carrying a very high mortality rate, such as cholera, smallpox, diphtheria, typhoid fever, yellow fever, and pneumonia. This low mortality rate is always superior to the results obtained by the allopathy practiced at that particular time and, as a rule, the allopathy of today. Despite well-documented and official reports, the results obtained by homeopathy have been almost completely ignored by the scientific and medical communities, as if they had occurred in a void of time and space.I will now give five examples to illustrate these results:When cholera first invaded Europe in 1831, the mortality throughout Europe was generally between 40-60%. To the surprise of many, mortality rates reported by homeopathic physicians was generally below ten percent and, commonly, under four percent.I will now present two typical cholera reports, which have an official stamp to them. The first one comes from the territory of Raab in Hungary where, in 1831, a Dr. Joseph Bakody treated 223 patients with mild-to-severe cholera, 14 of whom were in the collapse state. He lost a total of eight patients, a mortality of 3.6%.A similar situation occurred in Cincinnati in 1849. The Board of Health issued an order calling for physicians to report all cases of cholera. The Board received reports of a high mortality rate from the city hospital and allopathic physicians. However, six homeopathic physicians attracted national attention when they reported not one single death out of their first 350 cases of cholera. Two of these homeopathic physicians, Dr. Pulte and Ehrmann would eventually report treating 2,646 cases with 35 deaths, or a mortality rate of 1.3%. Allopaths reported fatal outcomes in 50% of their cases.Now, let's move on and look at pneumonia, whose incidence and virulence has remained quite uniform throughout time. Before the era of antibiotics, the average death rate from pneumonia was 30%. Since the introduction of antibiotics, the death rate has only gone down to 18%. On the other hand, the death rate under genuine homeopathic treatment has always been less than one to three percent, even in patients suffering from the most fulminate type of pneumonia.Let's push our inquiry a bit further and look at the most fatal of all infectious diseases, rabies. I have been able to document more than a dozen well-described cases with unmistakable, fully developed clinical rabies that had uneventful recoveries under homeopathy without any prophylaxis whatsoever to assuage the virulence of the disease.This small sample of reports should be sufficient to illustrate the potential of homeopathy and incite real scientists, honest physicians, and intelligent people to examine homeopathy more seriously. Such extraordinary outcomes are not an exception in homeopathy but are the rule for all 33 infectious diseases I have so far investigated, which include typhus, malignant scarlet fever, meningitis, tetanus, anthrax, septicemia, and malaria.What you have seen today makes it clear--homeopathy is very plausible, and there is both ample clinical and epidemiological evidence that it works. Homeopathy will become an integral part of medicine despite the paradoxical nature of its remedies and all other prejudices against it, simply because homeopathy is safe, efficacious, and cost-effective.”

A Debate: Homeopathy--Quackery or a Key to the Future of Medicine? University of Connecticut Health Center, Farmington, Connecticut, October 25, 2007

http://nationalcenterforhomeopathy.org/media/in_the_news_view.jsp?id=789

Article about homeopathy research featuring Rustum Roy from Penn State

How Science Reporting Works

The best explanation yet!!

http://zs1.smbc-comics.com/comics/20090830.gif

Our School in the News... and the Nation's Replies!

I've recently been reviewing the story Dr. Mittman referred to during Orientation whereby ABC News interviewed him.

What strikes me this time is the passion, testimonies, once incurable people who were cured, FDA whistle blowers, History, and etc. interwoven within the 111 replies. Like a gripping drama, these replies are filled with lies, deceitful perceptions, death, life, battle, greed, healing, revelation, change, and triumph. It accelerates me and... my soul hearkens to the need for us to be awesome naturopathic physicians, or termed more accurately, Nature Servants (contact me to discuss more of what this term Nature Server means). Put simply, the need for us to help sick people get Healthy.

Take a look at the article and or Replies at: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/WellnessNews/comments?type=story&id=8215703


And let me know what you think / feel...


Onward,


Steven M. Sabatier, MBA-HCA

Certified Trainer for The PAR Group
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Cool page on Nasal Cranial Release Technique

http://www.nasalspecific.com/nasalspecific_002.htm

What happens when you use drugs to decrease the acidity of the stomach?

This is what happens when you try to decrease the acidity of the stomach. The article was brought up in a study group today. Enjoy.

Risk of Community-Acquired Pneumonia and Use of Gastric Acid–Suppressive Drugs

Robert J. F. Laheij, PhD; Miriam C. J. M. Sturkenboom, PhD; Robert-Jan Hassing, MSc; Jeanne Dieleman, PhD;Bruno H. C. Stricker, MD, PhD; Jan B. M. J. Jansen, MD, PhD

JAMA. 2004;292:1955-1960.

Context Reduction of gastric acid secretion by acid-suppressive therapy allows pathogen colonization from the upper gastrointestinal tract. The bacteria and viruses in the contaminated stomach have been identified as species from the oral cavity.

Objective To examine the association between the use of acid-suppressive drugs and occurrence of community-acquiredpneumonia.

Design, Setting, and Participants Incident acid-suppressive drug users with at least 1 year of valid database history wereidentified from the Integrated Primary Care Information database between January 1, 1995, and December 31, 2002. Incidence rates for pneumonia were calculated for unexposed and exposed individuals. To reduce confounding by indication, a case-control analysis was conducted nested in a cohort of incident users of acid-suppressive drugs. Cases were all individuals with incident pneumonia during or after stopping use of acid-suppressive drugs. Up to 10 controls were matched to each case for practice, year of birth, sex, and index date. Conditional logistic regression was used to compare the risk of community-acquired pneumonia between use of proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) and H₂-receptor antagonists.

Main Outcome Measure Community-acquired pneumonia defined as certain (proven by radiography or sputum culture) or probable (clinical symptoms consistent with pneumonia).

Results The study population comprised 364 683 individuals who developed 5551 first occurrences of pneumonia during follow-up. The incidence rates of pneumonia in non–acid-suppressive drug users and acid-suppressive drug users were 0.6 and 2.45 per 100 person-years, respectively. The adjusted relative risk for pneumonia among persons currently using PPIs compared with those who stopped using PPIs was 1.89 (95% confidence interval, 1.36-2.62). Current users of H₂-receptor antagonists had a 1.63-fold increased risk of pneumonia (95% confidence interval, 1.07-2.48) compared with those who stopped use. For current PPI users, a significant positive dose-response relationship was observed. For H₂-receptor antagonist users, the variation in dose was restricted.

Conclusion Current use of gastric acid–suppressive therapy was associated with an increased risk of community-acquired pneumonia.

Author Affiliations: Department of Gastroenterology, University Medical Center St. Radboud, Nijmegen, the Netherlands (Drs Laheij and Jansen); and Department of Medical Informatics (Drs Laheij, Sturkenboom, Dieleman, and Stricker and Mr Hassing), Pharmacoepidemiology Unit, Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics (Drs Sturkenboom and Stricker), and Internal Medicine (Dr Dieleman), Erasmus MC University, Medical Center Rotterdam, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

CNN article from today- Herbs, vitamins that can hurt you

Herbs, vitamins that can hurt you

Is US Health Really the Best in the World?

Courtesy of Erik- Third paragraph is very interesting, talks about how iatrogenic disease is the third cause of death in the US.

Is US Health Really the Best in the World?

Barbara Starfield, MD, MPH

JAMA. 2000;284:483-485.

Information concerning the deficiencies of US medical care has been accumulating. The fact that more than 40 million people have no health insurance is well known. The high cost of the health care system is considered to be a deficit, but seems to be tolerated under the assumption that better health results from more expensive care, despite evidence from a few studies indicating that as many as 20% to 30% of patients receive contraindicated care.¹ In addition, with the release of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) report "To Err Is Human,"² millions of Americans learned, for the first time, that an estimated 44,000 to 98,000 amongthem die each year as a result of medical errors.

The fact is that the US population does not have anywhere near the best health in the world. Of 13 countries in a recent comparison,³ the United States ranks an average of 12th (second from the bottom) for 16 available health indicators. Countries in order of their average ranking on the health indicators (with the first being the best) are Japan, Sweden, Canada, France, Australia, Spain, Finland, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Belgium, the United States, and Germany. Rankings of the United States on the separate indicators³ are:

• 13th (last) for low-birth-weight percentages
  
• 13th for neonatal mortality and infant mortality overall
  
• 11th for postneonatal mortality
  
• 13th for years of potential life lost (excluding external causes)
  
• 11th for life expectancy at 1 year for females, 12th for males
  
• 10th for life expectancy at 15 years for females, 12th for males
  
• 10th for life expectancy at 40 years for females, 9th for males
  
• 7th for life expectancy at 65 years for females, 7th for males
  
• 3rd for life expectancy at 80 years for females, 3rd for males
  
• 10th for age-adjusted mortality
  

The poor performance of the United States was recently confirmed by the World Health Organization, which used different indicators. Using data on disability-adjusted life expectancy, child survival to age 5 years, experiences with the health care system, disparities across social groups in experiences with the health care system, and equality of family out-of-pocket expenditures for health care (regardless of need for services), this report ranked the United States as 15th among 25 industrialized countries.⁴ Thus, the figures regarding the poor position of the United States in health worldwide are robust and not dependent on the particular measures used. Common explanations for this poor performancefail to implicate the health system. The perception is that the American public "behaves badly" by smoking, drinking, and perpetrating violence. The data show otherwise, at least relatively. The proportion of females who smoke ranges from 14% in Japan to 41% in Denmark; in the United States, it is 24% (fifth best). For males, the range is from 26% in Sweden to 61% in Japan; it is 28% in the United States (third best).

The data for alcoholic beverage consumption are similar: the United States ranks fifth best. Thus, although tobacco use and alcohol use in excess are clearly harmful to health, they do not account for the relatively poor position of the United States on these health indicators. The data on years of potential life lost exclude external causes associated with deaths due to motor vehicle collisions and violence, and it is still the worst among the 13 countries.³ Dietary differences have been demonstrated to be related to differences in mortality across countries,⁵ but the United States has relatively low consumption of animal fats (fifth lowest in men aged 55-64 years in 20 industrialized countries) and the third lowest mean cholesterol concentrations among men aged 50 to 70 years among 13 industrialized countries.⁶

The real explanation for relatively poor health in the United States is undoubtedly complex and multifactorial. From a health system viewpoint, it is possible that the historic failure to build a strong primary care infrastructure could play some role. A wealth of evidence³ documents the benefits of characteristics associated with primary care performance. Of the 7 countries in the top of the average health ranking, 5 have strong primary care infrastructures. Although better access to care, including universal health insurance, is widely considered to be the solution, there is evidence that the major benefit of access accrues only when it facilitates receipt of primary care.^{3, 7} The health care system also may contribute to poor health through its adverse effects. For example, US estimates^8-10 of the combined effect of errors and adverse effects that occur because of iatrogenic damage not associated with recognizable error include:

• 12,000 deaths/year from unnecessary surgery
  
• 7000 deaths/year from medication errors in hospitals
  
• 20,000 deaths/year from other errors in hospitals
  
• 80,000 deaths/year from nosocomial infections in hospitals
  
• 106,000 deaths/year from nonerror, adverse effects of medications
  

These total to 225,000 deaths per year from iatrogenic causes. Three caveats should be noted. First, most of the data are derived from studies in hospitalized patients. Second, these estimates are for deaths only and do not include adverse effects that are associated with disability or discomfort. Third, the estimates of death due to error are lower than those in the IOM report.¹ If the higher estimates are used, the deaths due to iatrogenic causes would range from 230,000 to 284,000. In any case, 225,000 deaths per year constitutes the third leading cause of death in the United States, after deaths from heart disease and cancer. Even if these figures are overestimated, there is a wide margin between these numbers of deaths and the next leading cause of death (cerebrovascular disease).

One analysis overcomes some of these limitations by estimating adverse effects in outpatient care and including adverse effects other than death.¹¹ It concluded that between 4% and 18% of consecutive patients experience adverse effects in outpatient settings, with 116 million extra physician visits, 77 million extra prescriptions, 17 million emergency department visits, 8 million hospitalizations, 3 million long-term admissions, 199,000 additional deaths, and $77 billion in extra costs (equivalent to the aggregate cost of care of patients with diabetes).¹¹

Another possible contributor to the poor performance of the United States on health indicators is the high degree of income inequality in this country. An extensive literature documents the enduring adverse effects of low socioeconomic position on health; a newer and accumulating literature suggests the adverse effects not only of low social position but, especially, low relative social position in industrialized countries.¹² Among the 13 countries included in the international comparison mentioned above, the US position on income inequality is 11th (third worst). Sweden ranks the best on income equality (when income is calculated after taxes and including social transfers), matching its high position for health indicators. There is an imperfect relationship between rankings on income inequality and health, although the United States is the only country in a poor position on both (B.S., unpublished data, 2000).

An intriguing aspect of the data is the differences in ranking for the different age groups. US children are particularly disadvantaged, whereas elderly persons are much less so. Judging from the data on life expectancy at different ages, the US population becomes less disadvantaged as it ages, but even the relatively advantaged position of elderly persons in the United States is slipping. The US relative position for life expectancy in the oldest age group was better in the 1980s than in the 1990s.¹³ The long-existing poor ranking of the United States with regard to infant mortality¹⁴ has been a cause for concern; it is not a result of the high percentages of low birth weight and infant mortality among the black population, because the international ranking hardly changes when data for the white population only are used.

Whereas definitive explanations for the relatively poor position of the United States continue to be elusive, there are sufficient hints as to their nature to provide the basis for consideration of neglected factors:

(1) The nature and operation of the health care system. In the United States, in contrast to many other countries, the extent to which receipt of services from primary care physicians vs specialists affects overall health and survival has not been considered. While available data indicate that specialty care is associated with better quality of care for specific conditions in the purview of the specialist,¹⁵ the data on general medical care suggest otherwise.¹⁶ National surveys almost all fail to obtain data on the extent to which the care received fulfills the criteria for primary care, so it is not possible to examine the relationships between individual and community health characteristics and the type of care received.

(2) The relationship between iatrogenic effects (including both error and nonerror adverse events) and type of care received. The results of international surveys document the high availability of technology in the United States. Among 29 countries, the United States is second only to Japan in the availability of magnetic resonance imaging units and computed tomography scanners per million population.¹⁷ Japan, however, ranks highest on health, whereas the United States ranks among the lowest. It is possible that the high use of technology in Japan is limited to diagnostic technology not matched by high rates of treatment, whereas in the United States, high use of diagnostic technology may be linked to the "cascade effect"¹⁸ and to more treatment. Supporting this possibility are data showing that the number of employees per bed (full-time equivalents) in the United States is highestamong the countries ranked, whereas they are very low in Japan¹⁷—far lower than can be accounted for by the common practice of having family members rather than hospital staff provide the amenities of hospital care.

How cause of death and outpatient diagnoses are coded does not facilitate an understanding of the extent to which iatrogenic causes of ill health are operative. Consistent use of "E" codes (external causes of injury and poisoning) would improve the likelihood of their recognition because these ICD (International Classification of Diseases) codes permit attribution of cause of effect to "Drugs, Medicinal, and Biological Substances Causing Adverse Effects in Therapeutic Use." More consistent use of codes for "Complications of Surgical and Medical Care" (ICD codes 960-979 and 996-999) might improve the recognition of the magnitude of their effect; currently, most deaths resulting from these underlying causes are likely to be coded according to the immediate cause of death (such as organ failure). The suggestions of the IOM document on mandatory reporting of adverse effects might improve reporting in hospital settings, but it is unlikely to affect underreporting of adverse events in noninstitutional settings. Only better record keeping, with documentation of all interventions and resulting health status (including symptoms and signs), is likely to improve the current ability to understand both the adverse and positive effects of health care.

(3) The relationships among income inequality, social disadvantage, and characteristics of health systems, including the relative contributions of primary care and specialty care. Recent studies using physician-to-population ratios (as a proxy for unavailable data on actual receipt of health services according to their type) have shown that the higher the primary care physician–to–population ratio in a state, the better most health outcomes are.¹⁹ The influence of specialty physician–to–population ratios and of specialist–to–primary care physician ratios has not been adequately studied, but preliminary and relatively superficial analyses suggest that the converse may be the case. Inclusion of income inequality variables in the analysis does not eliminate the positive effect of primary care. Furthermore, states that have more equitable distributions of income also are more likely to have better primary care resource availability, thus raising questions about the relationships among a host of social and health policy characteristics that determine what and how resources are available.

Recognition of the harmful effects of health care interventions, and the likely possibility that they account for a substantial proportion of the excess deaths in the United States compared with other comparably industrialized nations, sheds new light on imperatives for research and health policy. Alternative explanations for these realities deserve intensive exploration.

Faking Scientific Evidence

One in Seven Scientists Say Colleagues Fake "Scientific" Study Results

Monday, August 17, 2009 by: David Gutierrez, staff writer

(NaturalNews) One in seven scientists report that they have known colleagues to falsify or slant the findings of their research, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and published in the journal PLoS One.

A number of scientific data falsification scandals have emerged in recent years, such as the case of a South Korean researcher who invented data on stem cell research. At the same time, increasing controversy over close industry ties to medical research has called into question whether researchers who take money from drug companies might be induced to falsify their data.

"Increasing evidence suggests that known frauds are just the tip of the iceberg and that many cases are never discovered," said researcher Daniele Fanelli.

The researchers reviewed the results of 21 different scientific misconduct surveys that had been performed between 1985 and 2005. All respondents were asked whether they or anyone they knew of had taken part in either fabrication (outright invention of data) or "questionable practices."

Questionable practices were any improper procedure short of fabrication, including failing to publish results contradicting one's prior research, modifying data based on a "gut feeling," changing conclusions after pressure from a funder or selectively choosing which data to include in an analysis.

One in seven scientists said that they were aware of colleagues who had engaged in fabrication, while nearly half -- 46 percent -- admitted to knowing of colleagues who had used questionable practices. Only two percent, however, admitted to fabricating results themselves.

While two percent is higher than previous estimates of the prevalence of data fabrication, researchers believe that the number is still too low. In all likelihood, it reflects both a reluctance by researchers to admit to serious misconduct and a tendency to interpret one's behavior as favorably as possible -- questionable instead of fabrication, or acceptable rather than questionable.

Researchers in the medical and pharmacalogical fields were the most likely to admit to misconduct than researchers in other fields.