An iatrogenic disorder is a condition caused by medical personnel or procedures

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Ingri Cassel

Thursday, February 28, 2002 9:22 PM

Iatrogeny --by Alan Yurko

 

 

Thanks to Dewey for putting the following excellent article by Alan Yurko on

our website.

He also suggested that I forward it to you. --I will be " out of it " for a few

weeks (until St. Patrick's Day) due to tagging along with the J.A.I.L. Tour

--statewide petition drive for Idaho. I will be recruiting VacLib members and

supporters along the way and will be doing a separate presentation after the

JAIL Tour presentations in each city. Dewey has graciously agreed to send you

some of his best of the best VacLib type info for sharing with you while I am

gone. So if you start getting email from Dewey Duffel at duffel

--it IS VacLib related. Thank you, Dewey!

 

~Ingri

 

 

 

http://www.vaclib.org/basic/iatrogen.htm

 

 

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IATROGENY: IATROGENOCIDE?

by Alan R. Yurko

The Journal of Degenerative Disease,

February/March 2002: 3(3rd); pages 37-38

 

 

Iatrogeny as defined by Mosbys

Medical Dictionary 5th Ed. 1998

states: IATROGENIC [Gk., iatros, physician, genein, to produce], caused

by treatment or diagnostic procedures. An iatrogenic disorder is a condition

caused by medical personnel or procedures or through exposure to the environment

of a health care facility, including fears instilled in patients by remarks or

questions of examining physicians. See also: 'nosocomial', (iatrogenesis,

iatrogeny, n.)

 

 

It is well'known that many new drugs, devices, surgeries and treatments

are touted as miracles of modern medicine, and albeit this article does not

argue this, this writer believes that much of this has two sides, possibly two

hundred. This article focuses on a dark side. Caveat Emptor. Buyer Beware.

 

 

I am blessed in that 95% of the people I know is a doctor, scientist or

activist in health care, and/or unfortunately, a victim of iatrogeny--including

myself. My honour and respect is commanded for the many of these people who are

working on one way or another to address iatrogeny.

 

 

A generation ago, people trusted their doctors blindly and implicitly.

There seemed to be a personal bond with one's doctor which has eroded with the

emphasis on medicine as a business, CPT codes, HMOs and iatrogeny, among other

things. The health care market place is not kind and people have lost trust.

Iatrogeny plays a large and ugly role in this.

 

 

A recent study published in The Joumal of The American Medical

Association 2000:284:94); by Barbara Starfield, MD, MPH showed that in the US,

this data was found:

12,000 deaths/year from unnecessary surgery

7,000 deaths/year from medication errors in hospitals

20,000 deaths/year from other errors in hospitals

80,000 deaths/year from nosocomial infections in hospitals

106,000 deaths/year from adverse effects of medications

This totals 225,000 deaths per year from iatrogenic causes, placing

iatrogeny as the third leading cause of death in the US, second only to heart

disease and cancer. The scary part is that this does not include disabilities

and disorders, just deaths in hospitalised patients. In any event, when one

ponders that more than four times as many people die in one year from doctors'

mistakes than died in the entire Vietnam War, one is aghast at why this

information isn't making headllines or why huge think tanks funded by

medicopolitical interests haven't forrned. We have the American Heart

Association to address heart disease, Richard Nixon's " War on Cancer " , and even

groups like " Mothers Against Drunk Driving " , and organisations to address almost

every sort of issue, save iatrogeny. My guess is that medicopolitics have not

figured out a way to capitalise off of all these deaths and disorders ... yet.

There is, however, a small " experts " consortium that does address iatrogeny in

the journals, but such studies are few and far between. Funding such studies

doesn't appear to be sound business practice.

 

 

Iatrogeny is not exclusive to the US. The British Medical Journal stated

on 18 March 2000 that " In Australia, medical error results is an many as 18,000

unnecessary deaths, and more than 50,000 patients become disabled every year. "

Studies released in the last ten years show similar trends in the UK, Canada and

New Zealand. New Zealand has a larae percentage ratio of adverse drug reactions

comparable to the US. It should be noted that the US and New Zealand are the

only countries that allow aggressive pharmaceutical drug advertisements.

 

 

One very interesting statistic I came across which deserves mention are

deaths attributed to addictive drugs in the UK between 1990 and 1995:

Benzodiazepines - 1,810

Methadone - 676

Heroin - 291

This emphasizes my point that millions of dollars and great concern through

organisations and associations are given to the deaths and disablements from

myriad causes except iatrogeny. Here we have two legal prescription drugs

causing more deaths each, than Heroin.

 

 

Many can pooh-pooh these statistics and claim that to err is human,

etc., however there comes a point when one must look deeper when the facts and

statistics are too overwhelming to ignore. Those in power have choices to make.

They can rationalise, deny or take responsible action. The latter seems to be

slow in genesis. There has been much denial and silence from the allopathic

medical industrial complex. Since medicine has become an arm of business and

since business and politics are such passionate bedfellows, one must look at

some other interesting facts.

 

 

Drug companies spend huge fortunes for political influence, in fact

lobbying for phamiaceutical interests in the first half of 2000 reached $42.9

million (USD); and it was estimated that $230 million (USD) would be spent

during the election. George Bush welcomed $1.7 million (USD) from drug companies

just for his inauguration celebrations! (British Medical Journal 27 January

2001). Drug companies are a business and have always been a business. They do

not give such an investment without an expected return with profits. Perhaps

this is why officials turn a blind eye to the fact that doctors and hospitals

are responsible for nearly a quarter-million deaths in the US per year. Or

perhaps this is why the pharmocompanies manufacture pesticides and chemicals

that cause cancer and disease and then manufacture drugs to treat diseases they

cause that can cause even more disorders to create a market for more drugs--and

more profit. A very lucrative cvcle. Perhaps this is why funding for disease

research successfully diverts attention from the pharmocartels own carcinogenic

and deadly products. One need not look too hard for reasons why doctors' and

hospitals' mistakes are the third leading cause of death in America, with no end

in sight.

 

 

Many believe that Barbara Starfield's study cited earlier is just the

tip of the iceberg. After all, the study only looked at hospitalised patients.

What of the in home and outpatient errors? There are more people to consider in

these groups, and certainly more iatrogeny. Could it be that iatrogeng is the

leading cause of death in the US? The World? As startling and unsupported as

that sounds, it may very well be true. At any rate, the iatrogenic holocaust

makes World War II deaths pale in comparison. Yet only patronising and minimal

attempts to recognize and correct iatrogeny have been made.

 

 

Murder Or Mistake?

 

 

 

The fine line between murder or mistake is a hot potato. If you saw your

neighbours being killed one by one and/or en masse, yet did nothing about it, or

took up for the killers, you could be guilty of " accessory to murder " or

" accessory to murder after the fact " . Many analogies and ethical juxtapositions

could be generated in such a debate. One could even make argument for a global

elitist plan at population control allowing iatrogeny to gain such momentum.

Regardless of etiology, iatrogeny is real. It is rampant and far from being

under control. By making iatrogeny, through semantics, sound as it is an

infectious disease beyond the control of physicians and hospitals, we allow the

medical profession and pharmaceutical cartels to distance themselves from

responsibility and relieve them from the culpability of what mirrors negligent

homicide.

 

 

It would be humanly impossible to eliminate genuine mistakes entirely.

The problem is that, " How many times does a mistake happen until it's not just a

mistake anymore, but negligence? " This author believes that 225,000 deaths every

year may be an example of when mistakes cross over to the darkness of

negligence. If so, then we are witnessing the greatest holocaust to befall

mankind ever.

 

 

In closing, I leave you with my own definition of a freshly coined word.

Iatrogenocide - [Gk, iatros, physician, genein, to produce, cide, killing]

The extermination of a population in a systematic fashion through medical error.

 

 

*For more information on iatrogeny, contact me at freeyurko

 

 

Bibliography:

 

 

WORLD HEALTH REPORT 2000,

Available at: http://www.who.int/whr/2000/en/report.htm.

 

 

Leape, L., Unnecessary Surgery, Annu.Rev. Pub. Health. 1992;l 3:363-383.

 

 

Starfield, B., Is U.S. Health Really the Best in the World? Jama

2000:284:(4).

 

 

Bagnall, G., Will the Accused Please Rise! Healthy Options,

2001:November:9-11.

 

 

Kohn, L., ed., Corrigan,J., ed., Donaldson, M., ed., To Err is Human:

Building a Safer Health System. Washington, DC, National Academy Press; 1999.

 

 

Weingart, S.N., Wilson, R.M., Gibbard, R.W., Harrison, B., Epidemiology and

Medical Error. BMJ 2000;320:774-777.

 

 

Evans, R., Roos, N., What is right about the Canadian Health System?

Milibank Quarterly 1999; 77:393-399.

 

 

Anderson, G., Poullier, J.-P., Health Spending, Access and Outcomes: Trends

in Industrialised Countries.

 

 

New York, NY: The Commonwealth Fund 1999.

 

 

The New Zealand Herald, 14 September, 1990.

 

 

 

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Ingri Cassel, President

Vaccination Liberation - Idaho Chapter

P.O. Box 1444

Coeur d'Alene, ID 83816

(208)255-2307/ 765-8421

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