[extropy-chat] Are vaccinations useless?

[deimtee]

One of the things that hasn't been mentioned so far is that as well as 
extending life,
medicine can shorten it. Misdiagnosis, incompetent surgery, hospital 
infections
and adverse drug reactions go into the negative side of the ledger.  I 
found this
on an alternative medicine site, (  
http://www.cancure.org/medical_errors.htm   )
but I assume they're quoting accurately.

-deimtee.


*The JOURNAL of the AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION (JAMA)
 Vol 284, No 4, July 26th 2000 article written by *Dr Barbara Starfield, 
MD, MPH,
of the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health, shows that 
medical errors
 may be the third leading cause of death in the United States.

The report apparently shows there are 2,000 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 infections in hospitals; 
106,000 deaths/year
from non-error, adverse effects of medications - these total up to 
225,000 deaths per year
in the US from iatrogenic causes which ranks these deaths as the # 3 
killer. Iatrogenic is
a term used when a patient dies as a direct result of treatments by a 
physician, whether
it is from misdiagnosis of the ailment or from adverse drug reactions 
used to treat the
illness. (drug reactions are the most common cause).



Russell Wallace wrote:

>On 3/14/06, "Hal Finney" <hal at finney.org> wrote:
>  
>
>>One of the other sources I found at the library was a health economics
>>textbook that Robin recommended on his web page for his students: The
>>Economics of Health and Health Care, by Folland, Goodman, and Stano.
>>This has a nice overview of the areas of consensus and controversy
>>regarding the causes of the dramatic decline in mortality over the past
>>250 years.
>>    
>>
>
>
>Good article, thanks! Not very specific about actual causes, but it would
>seem consistent with the idea that things like hygiene, sanitation and
>quarantine account for the largest part of the improvement (with improved
>nutrition helping, but not enough to account for the bulk).
>
>  
>
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