Posted on: Friday, April 19th 2024 at 3:00 am
In a medical system that claims to "first, do no harm," a silent epidemic of pharmaceutical deaths is claiming hundreds of thousands of American lives each year. Meanwhile, the very substances demonized as dangerous - vitamins and minerals - have a pristine safety record. It's time to re-examine our deadly dependence on drugs and embrace the healing power of nature.
Prescription Drugs: The Leading Killer Hiding in Plain Sight
In a provocative analysis, Dr. Peter Gøtzsche, co-founder of the prestigious Cochrane Collaboration, has identified a shocking hidden epidemic: prescription drugs, he calculates, are now the leading cause of death in the United States, surpassing both heart disease and cancer.1
Gøtzsche's findings, published on the Brownstone Institute website, are based on a rigorous review of FDA adverse event data, placebo-controlled clinical trials, and large epidemiological studies. He estimates that the various classes of pharmaceutical drugs - from psychiatric medications to painkillers - are responsible for a staggering 882,000 U.S. deaths annually.2
Among the most lethal culprits Gøtzsche identifies are psychiatric drugs, which he implicates in hundreds of thousands of premature deaths each year. Drawing on data from clinical trials and observational studies, he estimates an annual mortality rate of 2% for antipsychotics in the elderly, 2% for benzodiazepines and "Z-drugs" used for insomnia, and 2% for SSRI antidepressants in older adults.3,4,5,6,7
Extrapolating these mortality rates to the number of Americans over 65 taking psychiatric drugs, Gøtzsche calculates that these medications alone cause 390,000 deaths in this age group annually. When combined with estimated deaths from adverse drug events in hospitals (315,000), prescription opioid overdoses (70,000), and NSAID-related gastrointestinal bleeding and heart attacks (107,000), the pharmaceutical death toll reaches a mind-boggling 882,000 lives per year.2
These numbers, as shocking as they are, may even underestimate the true extent of the problem. Gøtzsche points out that most drug-related fatalities occur outside hospital settings and are rarely attributed to the medications on death certificates.2 Moreover, the FDA's voluntary adverse event reporting system is known to capture only a small fraction of serious reactions.15
Perhaps most disturbingly, Gøtzsche contends that many, if not most, of these pharmaceutical deaths are preventable, as the drugs are often unnecessary or marginally effective. He points to evidence that widely prescribed psychiatric drugs and painkillers often show minimal therapeutic benefit over placebo in clinical trials.2
Supplements: A Shining Safety Record Hiding in Plain Sight
In sharp contrast to the alarming mortality figures linked to pharmaceuticals, nutritional supplements have an unassailable safety record. The latest annual report from the American Association of Poison Control Centers, published in the journal Clinical Toxicology, shows zero deaths attributable to vitamins or minerals in 2021.16
This is not an anomaly, but rather a consistent pattern stretching back decades. Despite the fact that a majority of U.S. adults takes supplements regularly, resulting in billions of doses consumed annually, these nutrients have not been linked to a single confirmed fatality in these authoritative reports.16
The staggering safety gap between supplements and pharmaceuticals is thrown into even starker relief when one considers how widely used the former are. According to a recent Harris Poll, 86% of American adults take vitamins, minerals, herbs, or other natural substances regularly.2 With such widespread use, even a modest risk could be expected to generate a significant number of adverse events. Yet, year after year, the data show that supplements are not associated with fatalities.
This unblemished track record is all the more remarkable when contrasted with the ubiquity of pharmaceutical-linked deaths. As Gøtzsche's analysis makes plain, prescription drugs exact a devastating toll, claiming hundreds of thousands of lives annually in the U.S. alone.2
The Hidden Hand of Pharma: Profits Over Patients
How has such a deadly and lopsided state of affairs come to pass? In Gøtzsche's view, the answer lies in the corrosive influence of the pharmaceutical industry on the medical system. He argues that regulators, under the sway of powerful drug company lobbying, have become increasingly lax and permissive.2
This charge is echoed by Sayer Ji in his provocative 2012 article, "Has Drug-Driven Medicine Become a Form of Human Sacrifice?"14 Ji contends that modern medicine has degenerated into "a form of mass control and a highly organized means of defrauding the public of both its wealth and health."14
There is no denying that pharmaceuticals, with their monopoly patents and eye-popping profit margins,17 have come to dominate and define the practice of medicine. The top-selling drugs routinely generate over $1 billion in annual revenues,18 creating an overwhelming financial incentive to overprescribe them.
In contrast, supplements - consisting of natural substances that cannot be patented - offer slim profit potential. This economic reality has led to a concerted campaign by Big Pharma to demonize and marginalize these safer alternatives. From lobbying for restrictive regulations to funding biased studies, the industry has worked tirelessly to create the illusion that supplements are dangerous and ineffective.19
This systematic demonization of vitamins, minerals, and herbs flies in the face of both their outstanding safety record and their foundational role in maintaining health. Supplements, after all, merely provide the essential nutrients and phytochemicals that our bodies have evolved to utilize over millions of years.
The Way Forward: Embracing the Healing Power of Nature
The current state of affairs, in which a medical system that prides itself on being evidence-based and scientific is in fact driven by profit and manipulation, is not only scandalous but deadly. As Gøtzsche's analysis reveals, the human cost of this pharmaceutical dystopia is staggering, with hundreds of thousands of Americans dying unnecessarily each year.2
The way out of this public health catastrophe is not to double down on the failed pharmaceutical model, but rather to rediscover and embrace natural medicine. This approach, which has been the default for most of human history, is founded on the use of safe, natural substances that work in harmony with the body's innate healing mechanisms.
The modern scientific validation of this ancient wisdom is hiding in plain sight - the GreenMedInfo database alone has indexed over 90,000 studies supporting the health benefits of natural interventions.14 From individual nutrients like vitamin C and magnesium to herbal remedies like turmeric and ashwagandha, these therapies have shown remarkable safety and efficacy across a wide range of health applications.
Of course, supplements are not without risks, and quality and dosage are important considerations. But when used judiciously, they offer a means of preventing and treating disease at a fraction of the financial and human cost of pharmaceuticals.
The ultimate lesson to be drawn from the alarming figures cited by Gøtzsche is that our current drug-based paradigm of medicine is not just broken but deadly. The hundreds of thousands of lives lost to pharmaceutical side effects and mishaps each year are not unavoidable casualties, but rather the predictable outcome of a system that prioritizes profits over patients.
It is time for the mainstream medical establishment to confront this reality head-on and fundamentally re-evaluate its relationship with the pharmaceutical industry. A return to the precautionary principle, the Hippocratic oath, and the healing wisdom of nature is not just a moral imperative, but a matter of public health urgency.
As consumers and citizens, we must also demand change. We can no longer afford to blindly trust in a medical system that places us at such grave risk. By educating ourselves about the safer, evidence-based alternatives that exist and insisting on our right to access them, we can collectively steer medicine back to its patient-centered roots.
The choice between a drug-driven model of symptom suppression and a nature-based approach of prevention and true healing has never been starker - and the stakes have never been higher. The question is not whether we can afford to change course, but whether we can afford not to. Our lives, quite literally, depend on it.
References
1. Gøtzsche, Peter. "Prescription Drugs Are the Leading Cause of Death." Brownstone Institute, April 16, 2024. https://brownstone.org/
2. Ibid.
3. FDA package insert for Risperdal (risperidone). Accessed April 15, 2024. https://www.accessdata.fda.
4. Weich, Scott et al. "Effect of anxiolytic and hypnotic drug prescriptions on mortality hazards: retrospective cohort study." BMJ 348 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.
5. Kripke, Daniel F et al. "Hypnotics' association with mortality or cancer: a matched cohort study." BMJ Open 2.1 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1136/
6. Coupland, Carol et al. "Antidepressant use and risk of adverse outcomes in older people: population based cohort study." BMJ 343 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.
7. Smoller, Jordan W et al. "Antidepressant use and risk of incident cardiovascular morbidity and mortality among postmenopausal women in the Women's Health Initiative study." Archives of internal medicine 169.22 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1001/
8. James, John T. "A new, evidence-based estimate of patient harms associated with hospital care." Journal of patient safety 9.3 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1097/PTS.
9. "Drug Overdose Deaths." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, August 22, 2023. https://www.cdc.gov/
10. Bally, Michèle et al. "Risk of acute myocardial infarction with NSAIDs in real world use: bayesian meta-analysis of individual patient data." BMJ 357 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.
11. Perlis, Roy. "The time has come for over-the-counter antidepressants." Stat News, April 8, 2024. https://www.statnews.com/2024/
12. Hengartner, MP and M Plöderl. "Newer-Generation Antidepressants and Suicide Risk in Randomized Controlled Trials: a Re-Analysis of the FDA Database." Psychother Psychosom 88 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1159/
13. Hengartner, MP and M Plöderl. "Reply to the Letter to the Editor: "Newer-Generation Antidepressants and Suicide Risk: Thoughts on Hengartner and Plöderl's ReAnalysis." Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics 88.6 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1159/
14. Ji, Sayer. "Has Drug-Driven Medicine Become a Form of Human Sacrifice?" GreenMedInfo, July 16, 2022. https://greenmedinfo.com/blog/
15. Moore, Thomas J et al. "Serious adverse drug events reported to the Food and Drug Administration, 1998-2005." Archives of internal medicine 167.16 (2007): 1752-1759. https://doi.org/10.1001/
16. Gummin DD, Mowry JB, Beuhler MC et al. "2021 Annual Report of the National Poison Data System (NPDS) from America's Poison Centers: 39th Annual Report, Clinical Toxicology." Clinical Toxicology 60.12 (2022): 1381-1643. https://doi.org/10.1080/
17. Droppert, Hayley, and Sara Bennett. "Corporate social responsibility in global health: an exploratory study of multinational pharmaceutical firms." Globalization and health 11.15 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1186/
18. Smith, Michael. "The Top Selling Drugs in 2020." MDLinx, March 3, 2021. https://www.mdlinx.com/
19. Starr, Ranjani R. "Too little, too late: ineffective regulation of dietary supplements in the United States." American Journal of Public Health 105.3 (2015): 478-485. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.
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