Wednesday, July 07, 2004

Modern Health Care System is the Leading Cause of Death Doctors are the Third Leading Cause of Death was written in 2000. The updated version written by Gary Null PhD, Carolyn Dean MD ND, Martin Feldman MD, Debora Rasio MD, Dorothy Smith PhD, now documents why and how our modern health care system is the LEADING cause of death in this country - not heart disease, not cancer--doctors. In all fairness, doctors themselves are not to blame for all of this. The entire modern health care system, however, is to blame for allowing, even promoting, so many unnecessary procedures, drugs and mishaps. Death By Medicine illustrates precisely why the system is so desperately in need of change, and why exposing what's wrong and facilitating this change is, and will continue to be, a substantial  focus of HealthSavers Confidential. Pay attention. The life you save may be your own! To become informed, read it here: http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2004/mar2004_awsi_death_01.htm 10:37:19 PM    comment [] MORE REASON TO STAY CLEAR OF THE HOSPITAL.... Fatal errors push hospitals to make big changes (from today's Christian Science Monitor) Willie King went into a hospital and came out with the wrong leg amputated. Teenager Jesica Santillan died after she received a heart-lung transplant of the wrong blood type. Betsy Lehman, a medical reporter and mother of two, accidentally received fatal doses of chemotherapy four times what was intended. Ramon Vasquez died after he took the wrong heart medication when a pharmacist misinterpreted his doctor's handwritten prescription. Later, only a third of 158 doctors who were shown the prescription could identify the correct drug. Only in recent years, has news of these and other medical errors reached the public. For many years, deaths and serious injuries caused by medical mistreatment was an invisible problem while as many as 98,000 deaths are repeatedly caused by medical mistakes in hospitals each year. Now, at last, a reform movement has begun to address these problems and is pushing radical changes in the way medicine is practiced in the United States. Stay as far away from the hospital as you can until real change occurs. http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0708/p14s01-ussc.html 9:36:39 PM    comment [] WHO DOES THE FDA PROTECT? NOT WE, THE PEOPLE! THAT'S CLEAR. The pharmaceutical industry has repeatedly violated a 1997 federal law by failing to disclose the existence of large numbers of its clinical trials to a government database, says the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).  The little-known law, part of the FDA Modernization Act of 1997, requires pharmaceutical companies to register trials with the federal government.  Registration is not limited to federally funded clinical trials.  But the law has not yet been enforced, since the statute did not spell out penalties or give FDA the authority to go after violators, officials said.  The registry http://clinicaltrials.gov/, was launched in 1998 and went online in 2000.   In 2002, only 48 percent of cancer drug trials had been registered, and registration for some other drug trials is in the single digits, according to an FDA analysis.  Complying with the law would help address concerns about the effectiveness of drugs, since doctors and patients are often not told about failed trials.  FDA officials are evaluating whether they have enforcement powers under the current law, and members of Congress are considering adding clear enforcement provisions.  http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5375568/ 11:46:34 AM    comment []

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