Extermination by Medication, part 2

[Guest guest]

" WC Douglass " <realhealth

Daily Dose - Medicine's manslaughter by the numbers...

Mon, 07 Aug 2006 11:30:25 -0400

 

 

 

Extermination by Medication, part 2

 

In the last Daily Dose, I got my dander up because the mainstream

press reported the fact that prescription drugs kill and maim 1.5

million Americans every year as though it's a shocking revelation. In

actuality, it's the dirty little secret everyone in medicine has known

for years, whether most of them want to admit it or not.

 

Why does it rile me up so much when the Big Media warns us of the

dangers of drugs?

 

It's not because I've been warning people about this forever -- to the

thumbed nose of the tone-deaf medical mainstream. Well, maybe it's a

little bit because of this...

 

But it's mainly because of the fact that NO ONE NEEDS a bloody

government report to be aware of the profound danger that prescription

drugs embody, mistakes in their administration notwithstanding. Yet

the media and medical establishment seem only to put their faith in

such statistical gobbledygook. Here's what I mean:

 

Adverse reactions between prescribed drugs are perhaps the biggest

cause of drug-related deaths and injuries in the U.S. every year --

they represent a far larger chunk of drug-related liability than

administration errors or misread prescriptions, I'm all but certain.

And currently, there are around 10,000 patented prescription

medications on the market. Now, stay with me here...

 

Recent studies show that more than half of all Americans (this

includes all age groups, remember) are taking at least one of them.

And tens of millions of us are taking two or more. For these

multiple-drug-takers, the risk that these medications will interact

with each other in a dangerous or deadly way is very likely UNKNOWN --

despite what Big Pharma and most doctors would have you believe.

Here's the proof:

 

The simple math of the matter is that if there are 10,000 drugs out

there, that means our doctors, government, and/or drug makers have to

somehow know the outcomes of 100 MILLION (10,000 x 10,000) drug

combinations -- and this is just for the folks taking only two

different prescriptions...

 

Do you think all these possible combinations are a matter of record

somewhere -- some giant database you can consult before you get a

prescription? Does your doctor have the expertise to keep 100 million

possible drug interactions straight in his head? (I know I couldn't.)

Do you think Big Pharma and the FDA tested all of these combinations

before releasing their drugs to the public? Keep reading...

 

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According to a 2004 Health and Human Services report, 17% of us are

taking three or MORE prescription medications. For the elderly, it's

almost 50% who are popping a trio or more of different prescriptions

every day, all of which could possibly interact with each other in

deadly ways...

 

Just to give you some perspective. For those taking three drugs, a

total of 1 trillion possible interactions would have to be known,

studied, quantified, and deemed safe before the government, the medial

establishment, or drug makers could certify their safety.

 

Here's what a trillion looks like: 1,000,000,000,000. Think anyone has

checked into all of these possibilities?

 

For those taking four meds, that number looks like this:

100,000,000,000,000,000.

 

That's one hundred quadrillion possible interactions for anyone taking

four prescription medications (a not uncommon number, mind you). Think

anyone's got a handle on all these? I don't. And by they way - get

used to the number quadrillion. When it comes to the plethora of drugs

out there and the possible interactions between them, we need numbers

bigger than we're used to. In fact, we'd better start thinking ahead:

What comes after " quadrillion " ? Is it pentillion or squadrillion?)*

 

And not to complicate matters, but this doesn't even include possible

reactions with the more than 300,000 over-the-counter medications,

dietary supplements, and other medicinal products available in the

U.S. Add these into the mix, and the number of negative interactions

possible defies the power of mathematics to illustrate.

 

Bottom line: No matter what Big Pharma or the FDA says about how many

safety studies it has conducted, WE are the unwitting guinea pigs in a

giant, ongoing drug interaction study that never ends...

 

Except for those of us who are killed by it.

 

Doing my duty -- by the numbers,

 

William Campbell Douglass II, MD

 

*It's QUINTILLION - I looked it up. And speaking of " quintillion " --

here's an amazing factoid for you. McDonald's uses a Geographic

Information System named " Quintillion " (10 X 18 zeroes) to analyze

data to help predict a new location for one of its restaurants. They

use data such as satellite photos, income, new housing plans, and road

layouts to predict future incomes and population patterns. There is no

escaping the IRS, Homeland Security, or McDonald's - eat Big Macs and die!

 

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