By [1] Tom Dell

As many as 225,000 Americans die every year as a result of medical treatments, making our health care system the third biggest killer after heart disease and cancer.

This is one conclusion of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) report Is US health really the best in the world? by Barbara Starfield, MD, MPH. The report cites several studies in estimating the following number of deaths attributable to medical treatments:

• 106,000 deaths annually due to negative drugs effects.
• 80,000 deaths annually due to infections acquired while in hospitals.
• 20,000 deaths annually due to errors made by hospitals.
• 12,000 deaths annually due to unnecessary surgery.
• 7,000 deaths annually due to medication errors in hospitals.

By way of comparison, heart disease kills about 632,000 Americans annually and cancer about 560,000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). After that comes cerebrovascular diseases (strokes), which kill 137,119 annually.

The report challenges the perception that, while expensive, the American health care system is the best in the world. In fact, according to several studies including one by the World Health Organization (WHO), our system doesn’t even make the top 10 when compared to such countries as Canada, France, Japan and Sweden.

We can argue back and forth about the merits of various health care systems. We can also pour over the statistics to draw conclusions about why medical treatment is so risky. It is a lot easier to close with one inarguable conclusion, however. If you keep yourself healthy, you’ll have a much smaller risk of being subjected to the health care system at all.

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