Taking your medicine - to the grave?

I've written frequently about how errors in drug administration have put tens of thousands of Americans on the slab over the last few decades. Of course, for even one person to lose his life over a careless medical mistake is inexcusable…

But what I don't want to lose sight of is how many of us are being sickened and killed by the prescription drugs we take CORRECTLY.

According to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, new study data from 2004 shows that for every person hospitalized in the year for a medication error (wrong drug, wrong dosage, etc.), 9 OTHERS were admitted for reactions to drugs that were given in total accordance with their recommendations and administration instructions!

That's right: More than 90% of hospitalizations for ADR (Adverse Drug Reactions) were caused by the drugs we took precisely the way doctors and Big Pharma told us to.

Other things the research revealed: The average of total hospital costs for those suffering from ADR were almost 33% higher than those hospitalized for non-drug-related reasons…

Not all classes of drugs were equal in their likelihood of misadministration. 99.6% of those hospitalized for adverse reactions to both corticosteroids and anti-cancer drugs (2 of the top 3 classes of drugs involved in ADRs) had taken or been given their medications correctly…

The average age of those hospitalized for an ADR from correctly administered medicine was 64 - for improperly administered drugs, that age was 47…

Almost 60% of those who experienced ADRs of any type were women…

Some credible statistics estimate the number of U.S. deaths over the last decade from Adverse Drug Reactions (ADR) at more than a million…

Bottom line: Medical and medication errors are a major American killer. But the far bigger killer is the drugs themselves. If this data is right (and I'm sure it is), you're 10 TIMES AS LIKELY to die from a drug's side effects than you are from a simple mistake in the taking of it.