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Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Elvis, Heath Ledger, Marilyn Monroe: What do they have in common?
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Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, Elvis, Heath Ledger, Marilyn Monroe: What do they have in common?
What is looks like over and over is accidental death from over prescribed legal drugs. Chemotherapy is highly toxic and a known side effect is more cancer. According to National Institute of Health: Cancer Health Disparities approximately 3,400 people are diagnosed with cancer daily with a death rate of 1,500. Many of these deaths are from secondary cancers that erupt after standard chemotherapy, the overwhelming treatment of choice.
We do not know the exact facts of how much toxicity is lethal in each of these cases. But we do know of some other issues that are highly disturbing that perhaps lead to a closer scrutiny of the health care profession in general. Here are some facts compiled by Dr. Len Saputo and Byron Belitsos, authors of "A Return to Healing: Radical Health Care Reform and the Future of Medicine."
- America ranks 37 in the world in terms of health-care system performance
- We rank 18th position out of 18 industrialized countries
- 62% of all bankruptcies were directly caused by medical bills in 2008
- 18% of the gross domestic product in the U.S. was spend on health care in 2008
- 7% of the gross domestic product was spent on health care in Japan in 2008
- 75% of health care dollars spent on chronic diseases, most being preventable
According to Saputo around 400,000 deaths occur from over prescribed drugs annually as opposed to 50 deaths from herbs and vitamins. Another 600,000 are injured or die from hospital related mistakes. Have you ever seen a drug commercial? In a direct quote from the book,
"Big pharma long ago also crossed an ethical line in its determination to virtually bribe physicians to use its products. And it's got the cash to do it. All told, Pharma spends over $20 billion each year on drug promotion; $5 billion is spent on DRC ads, leaving a lot for its main target - the already overwhelmed physicians. One study found that pharmaceutical companies spend between $8,000 and $15,000 annually to reach each practicing physician. But in another, more recent review of this subject published in the January 2008 issue of PLoS Medicine (the only major medical journal that does not accept advertising from drug companies) investigations took a more critical look at this estimate and determined that this number is more like $61,000 per physician!"
According the the New York Times/CBS News on June 15, 2009, 85% of Americans believe health care in America needs to be fundamentally changed or completely rebuilt. Also according to the NY Times/CBS 72% of Americans support a competitive government-administered insurance plan.
Although everyone would agree pharmaceuticals are a necessary and blessed part of life, perhaps in the future the recommendations would go something like this: First look at diet, exercise, detoxification strategies, emotional support, lifestyle change. If that doesn't work drug intervention and lastly surgery instead of prescribing drugs and prescribing more drugs and prescribing different drugs and different dosages of more drugs.
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