Adverse Drug Reactions Are #1 Cause of Illness, Disability & Death Says Physician Blaming Drug Ads

What we’re seeing is a damnable practice of prescribing drugs for almost any symptoms when most problems are not serious and will get better without any treatment, or a simple change in diet.

The oft-quoted JAMA figure of 106,000 Adverse Drug Reaction deaths (4-15-1998) were in hospitals, but 199,000 outpatient deaths (Western Journal of Medicine, June, 2000) brought the total to 305,000 and for every death, 550 were sick enough to see their doctor, 40 were sick enough to be admitted to the hospital and 15 were admitted to long term care–messed up for life?

The 1^st JAMA article defined Adverse Drug Reactions as “properly prescribed and administered.” It wasn’t an overdose or malpractice. The reactions are unpredictable, like Russian Roulette.

Most of the conditions in medical textbooks are of “unknown etiology,” and if they don’t know the cause, how can the drug be the cure? Almost all drugs in the Physicians’ Desk Refernce (3500 pages of fine print) have a long list of conditions reportedly caused by the drug.

Pharmacology evolved from toxicology which was the study of adverse effects of chemicals or drugs that kill half the rats. Not much has changed except for the greed of Congress to accept drug donations to their re-election campaign as long as they go along with “healthcare” that includes drug ads on TV and Obamacare, 20,000 pages written largely by help from drug companies.

Since Congress approved drug ads in 1997, illness, disability and deaths from adverse drug reactions (then the 3^rd leading cause of death, Journal of AMA, 7-26-2000) have increased 270% to 1995. (Archives of Internal Medicine, Sept 10, 2007)

But those figures for illnesses, disability and death are grossly out of date. There’s probably a 10-fold increase for two reasons.

1. Annual spending on direct-to-consumer advertising for prescription drugs tripled between 1996 and 2000, when it reached nearly $2.5 billion. (New England Journal of Medicine, 2-14-2002) The ads resulted in a tripling of spending on prescription drugs during that period of time  (Health Affairs, 8-2016)   By 2001, “Spending on Prescription Drugs Increased by Almost 19 Percent,” (NY Times, 5-8-2001) with drug sales then $132 billion. This shows drug investments of $2.5 billion in ads yielded sales of more than 50-fold their investment.

The above data looks back 15-20 years ago. This is 2016 and those drug ads on TV fill the commercial time on the evening news. By 2000 Adverse Drug Reactions were the #3 cause of death, (JAMA 7-26-2000)  but by now they easily surpass cancer and probably heart disease for this reason–

2. Two thirds of heart disease deaths are over the age of 75. Many, if not most, of these people are in nursing homes. The average number of prescriptions that a nursing home patient takes is 9. These people are so spaced out, they can fill their diaper and think everything is ok. And when their heart stops, their doctor signs the death certificate as “Heart Disease.”  No autopsy is done to see if a coronary artery was blocked. Autopsies aren’t fashionable now and “heart disease” on the death certificate raises no concern. 

One of the last messages in the Bible is to come out of Babylon—the confused systems of this world that include prescription drugs, “for by her sorceries [Greek word is pharmakeia] were all nations deceived.” Revelation 18:23. Coming out of such a corrupt system is possible if people realize that most of their health problems come from what they put in their mouths and if they are willing to eat wisely.

Richard Ruhling, MD was board-certified in internal medicine before teaching Health Science at Loma Linda University. He offers a DVD that shows Bill Clinton’s cardiologist from the Cleveland Clinic on his website, http://RichardRuhling.com and is author of “Why You Shouldn’t Ask Your Doctor,” that’s free Saturday, Sept 3 on Amazon where he has other ebooks with mostly four or five star reviews at http://amzn.to/1JTMjY9