Doctors Kill More People Per Year Than Guns - (Facts are our friends vs.libs)

THE RANT.US ^ | DECEMBER 31, 2004 | NATHAN TABOR

[CHARLITE]

Back before the November election, many mainstream media pundits - trying desperately to get John Kerry elected -- began to harp on President Bush's unwillingness to stop certain federal gun control laws from expiring as scheduled. But their propaganda efforts came to naught because this issue was a non-starter with the American people.

The fact is, in this day of post-911 increased security consciousness, most average Americans simply don't want more gun control. They want more guns on hand to defend themselves and their loved ones in the face of possible life-threatening danger. Soccer moms are now taking handgun proficiency courses down at the local firing range.

Liberals are always complaining about getting to the root of the problem - unless it deals with gun rights. Then they abandon all logical analysis and resort to hysteria, distortion and downright lies.

Today I want to set the record straight and dispel a few of the more common myths with some hard facts.

First, according to statistics provided by the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, there is an interesting correlation between accidental deaths caused by guns and by doctors.

Doctors: (A) There are 700,000 physicians in the U.S. (B) Accidental deaths caused by physicians total 120,000 per year. (C) Accidental death percentage per physician is 0.171.

Guns: (A) There are 80 million gun owners in the U.S. (B) There are 1,500 accidental gun deaths per year, all age groups. (C) The percentage of accidental deaths per gun owner is 0.0000188.

Statistically, then, doctors are 9,000 times more dangerous to the public health than gun owners. Fact: not everyone has a gun, but almost everyone has at least one doctor. Following the logic of liberals, we should all be warned: "Guns don't kill people. Doctors do."

More seriously, Dr. Glen Otero of the Claremont Institute has published an enlightening article entitled "Ten Myths About Gun Control." (This entire article can be found at the website of Doctors for Sensible Gun Laws). Here are just a few of his well-documented findings. ▪ Approximately 80 percent of all adult American citizens own firearms, and a gun can be found in nearly half of American households.

▪ Between 1974 and 1995, the total number of privately owned firearms in America increased by 75 percent, to 236 million. During the same period, national homicide and robbery rates did NOT significantly increase.

▪ Less than 1 percent of all guns are involved in any type of crime, which means that 99 percent of all guns are NOT used to commit any crime.

▪ In 1987, the National Crime Victimization Survey estimated that about 83 percent of Americans would become the victims of violent crime during the course of their lifetime.

▪ The National Self-Defense Survey found that between 1988 and 1993, American civilians used firearms in self-defense almost 2.5 million times per year, saving up to 400,000 lives per year in the process.

▪ Guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens deter crime. Where U.S. counties have enacted concealed-carry laws, murder rates fell by 8 percent, rape by 5 percent, and aggravated assault by 7 percent. Urban counties recorded the largest decreases demographically.

You get the picture: Guns don't kill people. People kill people. But sometimes law-abiding citizens with guns can save the lives of other innocent people.

It's time to restore some common sense to the hysterical debate over gun control. When Cain killed Abel with a rock, God didn't ban all rocks. He dealt with Cain personally. We need to enforce our criminal laws against murder, robbery, and assault.

I will cite the testimony of just one more expert witness. No, it's not another politician or media pundit. Here's what former Mafia underboss, self-confessed hit man, and government informant Sammy "The Bull" Gravano had to say:

"Gun control? It's the best thing you can do for crooks and gangsters. I want you to have nothing. If I'm a bad guy, I'm always gonna have a gun. Safety locks? You pull the trigger with a lock on, and I'll pull the trigger. We¹ll see who wins."

It's time for Liberals to go out and buy a gun. And maybe get a life or at least protect one.

Nathan Tabor is a conservative political activist based in Kernersville, North Carolina. He has his BA in Psychology and his Master’s Degree in Public Policy. He is a contributing editor at www.theconservativevoice.com

Comments:Nathan@nathantabor.com

[Bushforlife]

The data in regards to deaths caused by physician are from a seriously flawed study which has no factual basis in objective reality. Therefore, the malpractice lawyers LOVE these figures and broadcast them widely.
In fact, most of what they advocate has no factual basis in reality except their 35-40% take from each verdict.

[stopem]

What about doctor with a gun?

[Teplukin]

so is your point that gunowners should also carry malpractice insurance, like doctors do?

Frankly, I am opposed to the gov't making me carry insurance,just because a minority of gunowners misuse their gun. It reeks of socialism.

[Fishing-guy]

"Accidental deaths caused by physicians total 120,000 per year."

I find that number hard to believe. Pitting doctors against gun control, is that really a good conservative strategy?

[Jaysun]

Statistically, then, doctors are 9,000 times more dangerous to the public health than gun owners. Fact: not everyone has a gun, but almost everyone has at least one doctor. Following the logic of liberals, we should all be warned: "Guns don't kill people. Doctors do."

This problem can easily be fixed - the liberals have already done the work for us. Instead of putting safety locks on guns, we should put safety locks on doctors. I say we put doctors on active duty in straight jackets that are secured by two locks. We then give the locks to two other doctors that aren't on active duty. When the doctor wants to do his handiwork he has to have the other two doctors on hand to unlock him. The other two doctors then stay and observe his work thereby reducing the risk of accidents. It's brilliant.

Imagine, having a second and third doctor on hand to say, "You aren't going to sew up his chest without taking that soiled sponge out first are you?" Brilliant.

.

[Jaysun]

This problem can easily be fixed - the liberals have already done the work for us. Instead of putting safety locks on guns, we should put safety locks on doctors. I say we put doctors on active duty in straight jackets that are secured by two locks. We then give the (add "keys to the") locks to two other doctors that aren't on active duty.

[Giliad]

I think the point was that guns shouldn't be banned any more than doctors should be banned. Neither are bad.

[Disambiguator]

This headline is more accurate than you might think at first glance, since guns don't kill anyone. Now, if it read "...people with guns" that's a slightly different story.

[mountainlyons]

I thought that the liberals were leaving the USA!

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[Leo Carpathian]

And they are bitching about Chiropractors!!!

[Mike Darancette]

When sick: Get thee to a shooting range.

[Rockingham]

I am uneasy with comparing gun ownership to medical malpractice, but the post is fundamentally correct about the scale of malpractice.

A path breaking Institute of Medicine study in 1999 using a conservative methodology concluded that "44,000 - 98,000 Americans die from medical errors annually." The Institute of Medicine is part of the National Institutes of Health and is not an arm of the trial lawyers.

http://www.iom.edu/report.asp?id=5575

The actual death toll is likely higher, as indicated by Health Grades, Inc., an independent healthcare quality company. It has reported that "[a]n average of 195,000 people in the U.S. died due to potentially preventable, in-hospital medical errors in each of the years 2000, 2001 and 2002." Again, this is not a study done by trial lawyers.

http://www.healthgrades.com/media/english/pdf/HG_Patient_Safety_Study_Final.pdf

Other medical health professionals have corroborated these findings. To the credit of medicine as a profession, they are beginning to accept that there is a problem and are trying to find ways to reduce errors. Dislike of trial lawyers is a poor reason to differ with medicine's own recognition of its malpractice problem.

[Wonder Warthog]

"The data in regards to deaths caused by physician are from a seriously flawed study which has no factual basis in objective reality."

Sorry, but you're wrong. I've checked into this and there are a number of studies that have numbers much the same. In fact, several studies show significanlty HIGHER numbers. This specific set of statistics come from a newspaper article published in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer about four years ago.

[Sooth2222]

"Experts estimate that as many as 98,000 people die in any given year from medical errors that occur in hospitals. That's more than die from motor vehicle accidents, breast cancer, or AIDS--three causes that receive far more public attention. Indeed, more people die annually from medication errors than from workplace injuries. Add the financial cost to the human tragedy, and medical error easily rises to the top ranks of urgent, widespread public problems."

From the blurb (I'm not going to buy the report), IOM seems to lump everything that occurs anywhere in the hospital together, from the doctor who errs, to the nurse who administers the wrong medication, to the lab tech who reports out incorrect lab result.

That's NOT the same as "Accidental deaths caused by physicians total 120,000 per year".

It's entirely reasonable to have a system that compensates for bad outcomes (why are all the "bad doctors" in just a few specialties: Obstetrics, Orthopedic Surgery and Neurosurgery?) but there are more efficient ways to do it than to allocate 2/3 of the money to the plaintiff's and defense attorneys.

[Bushforlife]

The study is flawed in more ways than that. There are many assumptions made that are uncorroborated. You criticism is extremely valid, in that ANYTHING that goes wrong in a hospital is attributed to the doctor. This is the "captain of the ship" principle used by the malpractice lawyers [also known as the "deep pockets" principle: "he didn't actually do anything wrong, but he should have known the floor would be mopped and would still be wet after it was mopped, and that doctor has all that malpractice insurance after all, so HE is the one we will sue because that hospital patient fell, even though that doctor was in his office at the time"].

So if a nurse gives a wrong medication, and the patient dies, it is the doctors' fault. If a lab technician gives a wrong result, and the doctor acts on that result to protect the patient, and the patient thereby is harmed, it is the doctors' fault. There are liberal elements in the medical profession [ the AMA is full of them, I might add] that delight in self-castigation. This is the same liberal mindset that is responsible for the "blame America" attitude in the MSM. A lot of them are in the IOM as well. These people aren't taking care of patients; they are instead doing "studies"; thats how they get paid.

[Indrid Cold]

"Doctors Are The Third Leading Cause of Death
in the US, Causing 250,000 Deaths Every Year

This article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) is the best article I have ever seen written in the published literature documenting the tragedy of the traditional medical paradigm.
If you want to keep updated on issues like this click here to sign up for my free newsletter.

This information is a followup of the Institute of Medicine report which hit the papers in December of last year, but the data was hard to reference as it was not in peer-reviewed journal. Now it is published in JAMA which is the most widely circulated medical periodical in the world.

The author is Dr. Barbara Starfield of the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health and she desribes how the US health care system may contribute to poor health.

ALL THESE ARE DEATHS PER YEAR:

12,000 -- unnecessary surgery 8
7,000 -- medication errors in hospitals 9
20,000 -- other errors in hospitals 10
80,000 -- infections in hospitals 10
106,000 -- non-error, negative effects of drugs 2
These total to 250,000 deaths per year from iatrogenic causes!!
What does the word iatrogenic mean? This term is defined as induced in a patient by a physician's activity, manner, or therapy. Used especially of a complication of treatment.

Dr. Starfield offers several warnings in interpreting these numbers:

First, most of the data are derived from studies in hospitalized patients.
Second, these estimates are for deaths only and do not include negative effects that are associated with disability or discomfort.
Third, the estimates of death due to error are lower than those in the IOM report.1
If the higher estimates are used, the deaths due to iatrogenic causes would range from 230,000 to 284,000. In any case, 225,000 deaths per year constitutes the third leading cause of death in the United States, after deaths from heart disease and cancer. Even if these figures are overestimated, there is a wide margin between these numbers of deaths and the next leading cause of death (cerebrovascular disease).

Another analysis concluded that between 4% and 18% of consecutive patients experience negative effects in outpatient settings,with:

116 million extra physician visits
77 million extra prescriptions
17 million emergency department visits
8 million hospitalizations
3 million long-term admissions
199,000 additional deaths
$77 billion in extra costs"

So let's say "modern medicine kills people, rather than doctors." Happy now?

Or are they letting just anybody post goofy stuff in JAMA nowadays?

[Bushforlife]

Once again, look at the numbers. The premise of the studies are flawed. Bad treatment outcomes are the result of the underlying disease.

The study quotes 80,000 mortalities from infections; so the doctors are the CAUSE of the infections? Or do the patients have illnesses that leave them prone to infection, and theses infections kill the patient?

7000 medication errors. How is this segregated? Unless these are instances where the wrong drug is prescribed, the physician is NOT the problem if the pharmacy mixes the wrong drug, or the nurse gives the wrong drug.

106,000 "non-error, negative effects of drugs"; so if a patient has a very serious heart rhythm problem causing extreme low blood pressure, and a doctor prescribes the correct drug to save his life, and the patient has a fatal allergic reaction [which can happen to anyone with any drug], then that is the DOCTORS' fault? Come on.

Does modern medicine cause illness? Absolutely. A patient comes in with a serious infection. Without an antibiotic they will die. They are given the drug, and they get an allergic reaction, or antibiotic related colitis, or some other side effect of the drug. Is your contention that the life threatening infection should never have been treated in the first place? Yet the treatment made the patient sick! What would you have the doctor do? This is the nature of the business, that every treatment has potential drawbacks, but that on the whole benefit more people than not.

A small percentage of everyone who drives gets in fatal car accidents each year. Car accidents are the risk we take when we drive. Nonetheless, we get behind the wheel and drive away every day, despite the fact that we know we can get killed. We do that because we make the calculation that the odds of the "side-effect" of getting killed in a car accident is too small to deprive us of the benefit of driving.

A small percentage of patients who get antibiotics get a fatal allergic reaction every year. Fatal allergic reactions are the risk we take when we take an antibiotic. Nonetheless when we get pneumonia, we EXPECT our doctor to prescribe an antibiotic to get us better, despite the fact that we know that antibiotics have side effects, including a fatal allergic reaction. We demand treatment because we make the calculation that the odds of a fatal "side-effect" is too small to deprive us of the benefit of getting cured of the pneumonia.

According to your studies, the doctor killed the patient. There was no way to predict the allergic reaction. If the patient didn't get the antibiotic, he would have died. The family would have sued the doctor for not providing an antibiotic for the pneumonia. Yet in those studies, the doctor killed the patient. The studies purport to show that patients are hurt by modern medicine. What the studies ACTUALLY show is that in medicine we choose a lower risk treatment to treat a higher risk disease. The researchers would do better to invent medicines without ANY side effects; as of yet, there ARE no medicines without side effects. Instead, they blame doctors for the fact that the world is imperfect; believe me, if there WERE treaments without side effects, doctors would use them. As it is, the doctors have to use what they have.

I have been in medicine for 25 years. The AMA is a liberal organization which backs liberal secular social causes, and also will publish studies like this which purport to allow "self-examination" of the profession. Many of the articles in JAMA are questionable. The editors have certain agendas. Paradoxically, a good deal of what has been in JAMA over the years is incredibly biased against clinical physicians.

None of us rely on the MSM. JAMA is part of the MSM.

[Rockingham]

I read the IOM study when it first came out. From what I recall, all medical errors were lumped together and no effort was made to try to assess whether there was medical malpractice in the legal sense. The methodology of the study tended to under estimate the rate of error and has withstood challenge.

Some medical specialties invite litigation because they involve high stakes and difficult judgment calls. Brain surgery, Ob-Gyn, and orthopedic surgey all frequently require decisions with the potential to cripple or kill that is lacking in specialties such as dermatology or family practice.

Doctors often fantasize about a no fault compensation scheme for "bad outcomes." But such a mechanism is implausible because it would soon become like workmen's comp with high premiums, frequent but paltry awards, and its own burdens of administrative and legal costs. Since the number of prospective claimants would be far more numerous than doctors, they will tend to win the political battles that shape any such system.

Actually, the medical profession seems to be moving toward more vigorous efforts to reduce or eliminate errors and to be more forthcoming with patients. Anesthesiologists were nearly put out of business by high malpractice premiums but eventually revised their equipment and procedures so as to eliminate many sources of error. Consequently, they now have one of the best malpractice records and low insurance premiums to match.

The combination of high malpractice premiums, evidence based medicine, cost control, and quality measurement will bear fruit over time. The best course for the medical profession is to pursue such reforms rather than to try to tilt the legal system in their favor. When the chips are down, the public fears being the victim of medical malpractice more than they fear death or sympathize with doctors over high malpractice premiums. Doctors almost always lose when malpractice issues get to the ballot box.