Drops of AmusementMedical Facts
A new study by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, using data from 2004, shows that for every person hospitalized in the year for a medication error (wrong drug, wrong dosage, etc.), 9 people were admitted for reactions to drugs that were given in total accordance with their recommendations and administration instructions!
More than 90% of hospitalizations for Adverse Drug Reactions (ADR) were caused by drugs took precisely the way doctors and Big Pharma recommended.
Research also revealed:
- The average of total hospital costs for those suffering from ADR were almost 33% higher than those hospitalized for non-drug-related reasons...
- Not all classes of drugs were equal in their likelihood of misadministration. 99.6% of those hospitalized for adverse reactions to both corticosteroids and anti-cancer drugs (2 of the top 3 classes of drugs involved in ADRs) had taken or been given their medications correctly...
- The average age of those hospitalized for an ADR from correctly administered medicine was 64 - for improperly administered drugs, that age was 47...
- Almost 60% of those who experienced ADRs of any type were women...
Some statistics estimate the number of U.S. deaths over the last decade from ADR at more than a million...
Medical and medication errors are a major American killer. But the far bigger killer is the drugs themselves. If this data is right, you're 10 TIMES AS LIKELY to die from a drug's side effects than you are from a simple mistake in the taking of it.