Iatrogenic Disease

A term to become familiar with: 

"Iatrogenic disease is the third leading cause of death in the United States, only surpassed by heart disease and cancer. Iatrogenic diseases are the results of diagnostic and therapeutic procedures undertaken by a patient, in other words, they are doctor caused illnesses. About 250,000 people die a year due to poorly doctor prescribed medication and medical errors. By comparison, the Poison Control Centers of the United States reported that vitamins, minerals, amino acids, essential fats, herbal remedies and homeopathic has no reports of deaths or even poisoning. Because of the amount of drugs prescribed to a single patient to treat a single or several conditions, adverse drug reactions are likely to occur and cause pathologies independent of the conditions for which the treatments were meant for. Diagnostic and invasive procedures, like drugs and surgery, as well as hospitalization, and even the treating doctors themselves can bring about iatrogenic disorders. Adverse drug reactions are defined by World Health Organization as any reaction of a drug which is harmful and potentially unintended, it occurs in prescribed doses normally used for prevention, diagnosis and the treatment of disease. Generally, the more drugs a patient is prescribed, the more likely the possibilities of contracting an iatrogenic disorder."

Just a few years ago I would have been highly resistant to the idea that medicine is responsible for great amounts of death. But then I found out that prescription drugs, taken properly, are one of the leading causes of deaths in the US. And then we have the crazy, reckless, dissemination of experimental medicine to almost all age groups, across the world, in the last few years, at a blindingly fast pace. 

I think the term Iatrogenic Disease is one we should all become familiar with. The hospital system is a necessary and good thing in our world today. It does save a lot of lives. But is it just me, or is it not quite the system you once thought it was? 

The look on this doctors face, tells me, I am not the only one: Dr John Campbell.