U.S. Medical System’s Iatrogenic Issues

Something insurance reform won’t fix

Iatrogenic, adjective
a medical disorder caused by the diagnosis, manner or treatment of a physician.

Iatros is the Greek word for physician. -genic means induced by. Iatrogenic disease is a disease caused by a physician. Given the sheer complexity and technological wonders of modern Western [allopathic] medicine have led to some stretching of the strict meaning of the term, which is now applied to ANY adverse effect associated with ANY medical practitioner or treatment. Thus it can be used to describe the cancers caused (years down the line) by radiation and radioactive isotopes used to treat initial problems, prescription errors, hospital-contracted infections, problems caused when a surgeon leaves an instrument or two in the patient, a chiropractor who breaks the patient’s neck, etc., etc.

When I was busy educating myself as much as possible when my daughter determined to have her baby at home, I discovered that the nations that have the best statistical outcomes – fewest maternal and infant deaths or injuries – actually encourage home births because hospitals are dangerous places to both mothers and infants. They’re dangerous places for anyone these days, it seems. According to statistics compiled by OurCivilization.com, there are 8.9 million “unnecessary” hospitalizations every year in this country, which lead directly to 1.78 million “Iatrogenic Events.” Of 7.5 million “unnecessary” procedures ordered annually by physicians, another 1.3 million patients suffer direct harm. That adds up to 16.4 million people channeled into a harmful situation by their medical providers every year, and 3.8 million cases of direct harm to those people that they otherwise would not have suffered.

The same source estimates annual deaths caused by various leading iatrogenic factors, reaching a total of 783,936 deaths at a cost of $282 billion. Every year, and that’s not the highest estimate available. A simple extrapolation on the statistics gives us a projected 10-year death rate of 7,841,360 people, more people than have been killed in all the wars the United States ever fought over its entire history.

Medical insurance reform – which is the most we’ll ever get from Congress, and that’s likely to be a simple mandate to buy junk insurance – does not even begin to address what’s wrong with the health care system in this country. All it will do is put more people in harm’s way, given that medical care is now the third leading cause of death in the U.S. The American iatrogenic Association [AiA] is working to make the truth known to the general public, and to promote policies that will begin to address the serious issues. I encourage everyone concerned about the health care situation in this country – both access and quality of care – to check out their website and the collection of articles, essays, studies and book excerpts they offer.

The Truth is that at least 12,000 people die every year of unnecessary surgeries. Another 7,000 die to medication errors in hospitals. 20,000 die due to other errors in hospitals. Hospital-acquired infections, many resistant to known antibiotics, kill another 80,000. 106,000 die of those nifty “bad effects” of drugs their doctor prescribed, often for no better reason than that some hypnotized medically-obsessed junkie saw it advertised on TV and just HAD to have it. Only heart disease and cancer beat the medical system in this country on number of victims every year. You can bet that many of those the medical system kills were there because they were diagnosed with one of those issues, but their doctor or hospital killed them before their disease could.

This unacceptable situation SHOULD inform us that more access to the system for more people is not going to cure what ails us. All that is just more money for the players in that nasty futures market in human suffering. I read about a woman the other day who had her baby taken away from her because she resisted a doctor’s insistence that she submit to C-section (dangerous major surgery), at a hospital with a C-section rate approaching 50% of all births. What the hell kind of quality control is going on there? C-section is medically indicated – to save the life of mother or child in an extreme situation – for fewer than 6% of all births. I for one do not consider a doctor’s tee-off date to be an extreme situation threatening the life of mother or child. I DO consider unnecessary surgery to be a direct threat to life and limb, and so should everyone else in the world!

So when your least-favorite WingNut starts ranting about “ObamaCare” and euthanasia for poor old Granny, respond with some REAL statistics about what’s way more likely to kill off Granny and everyone else in the family before their time – that which passes for “health care” in this, the supposedly richest country the world has ever known. If all our government can do is offer more citizens the ‘right’ to access the killing floor, we’re better off without it.

So. Just wanted to continue with a theme, because I think it’s extremely useful as a means of keeping our heads about us while dealing with clinically insane bizonker-birthers who can’t tell their asses from their outhouse in this so-called “Health Care Debate.” Nobody anywhere is really doing anything about what’s actually wrong with health care in this country, and they will continue to do nothing about it until we’re all dead of it (or maybe just old age). NONE of them are addressing the problems.

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