Death By Doctor: The Grisly Data

Originally published via Armageddon Prose Substack:

Given that the first sacred principle of medicine as practiced in the United States is “do no harm,” the uninitiated-to-reality might be forgiven for assuming that the medical professionals responsible for administering healthcare are extremely careful in safeguarding their patients’ well-being.

While the medical industry is certainly diligent about safeguarding its profits and its stranglehold on the regulatory bureaucracy and corporate media, it’s not entirely clear where not killing/maiming its patients fits into its hierarchy of priorities, assuming it makes the list at all.

As the maxim goes, if you want to make an omelet, you’re going to have to break some eggs.

In the industry, the egg-breaking is called, euphemistically, “iatrogenesis.”

Via Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care (emphasis added):

“The side effects and risks associated with the medical intervention are called iatrogenesis. These side effects are also called adverse drug reactions (ADRs). Iatrogenesis is composed of two Greek words, “iatros,” which means physicians and “genesis,” which means origin. Hence, iatrogenic ailments are those where doctors, drugs, diagnostics, hospitals, and other medical institutions act as “pathogens” or “sickening agents.”*…

The groundbreaking work on iatrogenesis has been carried out by Ivan Illich. Illich, a leading critic of modern medicine has classified iatrogenesis into direct, caused by the medical care which can cause death, pain or sickness and indirect, wherein health policies themselves are responsible for illness, death, or disease. In his prestigious work named, “Medical Nemesis,” Illich opines that iatrogenesis is structural because it undermines people’s agency and competence to deal with their own disease. He also classified iatrogenesis as social and cultural. According to him, social iatrogenesis results from the medicalization of life and cultural medicalization is the destruction of traditional ways of dealing with and making sense of death, pain, and sickness.”

*For instance, officially sanctioned policy of tossing patients on ventilators prematurely during COVID-19 for Medicare dollars — even in cases where the patient may not have needed ventilation and often ended up dying as a result, which I have covered before.

Just how prevalent is iatrogenesis?

Continuing:

“Iatrogenesis is the fifth leading cause of death in the world. There are about 5%–8% of deaths due to ADRs worldwide. In many countries, ADRs are a leading cause of death. About 1.4 million patients are affected by the infections at any given time due to the healthcare system. In the developed countries, the toll is 5%–10% of patients while in developing countries “as many as a quarter of all patients may be affected by a healthcare-associated infection.” A study conducted in 2005 established communication problem as the major cause of 70% of sentinel events in a hospital-like setting.

The unsafe injection practice (unsterilized syringes and needles) worldwide accounts for 40% of infections. In some of the countries, the unsafe injection practice is as high as 70%. “Unsafe injection practices cause an estimated 1.3 million deaths each year worldwide, a loss of 26 million years of life and an annual burden of US$ 535 million in direct medical costs.” Unsafe blood transfusions contribute about 5%–15% of HIV infections. A study indicates that the donated blood was not at all screened for the infections such as HIV and Hepatitis in almost 60 countries worldwide…

Leape in 1994 published his study called “Error in Medicine” in Journal of American Medical Association, in which he reported a study of Schimmel in which he had estimated iatrogenic injury of 20% with 20% of fatalities. Leape also focused on the Harvard Medical Practice Study which was published in 1991 which suggested that 4% of iatrogenic illnesses occurred in New York City with 14% of fatalities. Hence, this way he estimated that people who get killed due to iatrogenic illness are about 180,000/year. However, he admitted that this number is a tip of iceberg due to the scarcity of actual data and underreporting of iatrogenic illnesses.”

Some studies point to as high as a quarter of a million Americans put six feet under every year by the medical system, which would render iatrogenesis the third-leading cause of death nationwide.

Via Stat News (emphasis added):

“Medical errors — including incorrect medications, surgical mishaps, and wrong diagnoses — kill more than 250,000 Americans every year, according to a new study, making them the third-leading cause of death in the country.

But nobody’s keeping good track of that number — and that needs to change, according to an article published Tuesday in the BMJ.

“There’s vast underrecognition, underpreparation, and underfunding of the problem of medical care gone awry, even though it has a significant impact on public health,” said Dr. Martin Makary, professor of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and lead author on the paper.

This paper builds upon a recent study that found that more than 210,000 deaths per year occur due to medical errors. When adjusting for 2013 hospital admission rates, Makary and his colleague found that the present number is more likely 251,454 deaths per year — surpassing the CDC’s stated third-leading cause of death, respiratory disease, which kills close to 150,000 people per year. The leading cause of death in the US is heart disease, followed by cancer.”

And, kindly bear in mind, all of the above is quantifying and characterizing just the “accidental” medical killings we see every year — never touching purposeful state execution, dressed up as an act of mercy, increasingly common in the West.

“I firmly believe that if the whole materia medica, as now used, could be sunk to the bottom of the sea, it would be better for mankind-and all the worse for the fishes.”

-Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Ben Bartee is an independent Bangkok-based American journalist with opposable thumbs.

Follow his stuff via Substack. Also, keep tabs via Twitter.

Support always welcome via the digital tip jar.

Bitcoin public address: bc1qvq4hgnx3eu09e0m2kk5uanxnm8ljfmpefwhaw