The Starfield Lightning Bolt: Medical Killers

JonRappoportsBlog  March 14 2014

Dr. Barbara Starfield
Dr. Barbara Starfield

From time to time, I reprint my interview with Dr. Barbara Starfield. Each time I try to write a new introduction.

On July 26, 2000, the Journal of the American Medical Association published Starfield’s review, “Is US health really the best in the world?”

In it, Starfield, who was a respected public health expert working at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, stated that:

 

  • The US medical system kills 225,000 Americans a year.
  • 106,000 deaths per year from FDA-approved medical drugs.
  • 119,000 deaths per year from error-ridden treatment in hospitals.

 

I’m aware that independent research puts those death figures much higher, but I focus on Dr. Starfield’s work because no mainstream reporter or government official could challenge her credentials or the credentials of the journal that published her findings.

And yes, there were stories in the press at the time, in 2000. But the coverage wasn’t aggressive, and it faded out quickly.

And none of the mainstream coverage did the obvious extrapolations. For example, we are talking about 2.25 MILLION deaths per decade. And over a MILLION deaths from medicines the FDA has approved as safe and effective.

Based on my long knowledge of mainstream reporters, I would make these estimates. 70% of them weren’t even aware of the significance of Starfield’s findings. That is, they were oblivious. The human toll didn’t register in their minds.

25% were aware Dr. Starfield had discovered shocking facts, but they didn’t believe the story had “legs.” They assumed it wouldn’t make a big splash.

5% saw how huge the story could become, if it were assigned as an ongoing investigation, like Watergate. But they knew their editors wouldn’t permit that, because among other reasons, their newspapers and television outlets were heavily dependent on pharmaceutical advertising dollars.

So the story died.

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Doctors Kill 2,450% More Americans Than All Gun-Related Deaths Combined

NaturalNews | January 31 2013

CNNEveryone agrees the Sandy Hook shooting was a tragedy. Lots of people subsequently exploited the deaths of those children to push a political agenda of disarming Americans by claiming “guns kill people.”

But compared to what? Swimming pools kill people. Horseback riding kills people. And yes, even childbirth kills people. (Does that mean we should criminalize getting pregnant?)

To make any sense of death statistics, we have to ask, “Compared to what?” Because if we compare deaths by firearms to other causes of death, the picture is very, very different from the doomsday fear mongering scenarios CNN and other gun control pushers have whipped up into a nationwide frenzy. In fact, as the following infographic shows, doctors kill 2,450% more Americans than all gun-related deaths combined.

Your doctor is FAR more likely to kill you than an armed criminal

It’s true: You are 64 times more likely to be killed by your doctor than by someone else wielding a gun. That’s because 19,766 of the total 31,940 gun deaths in the USA (in the year 2011) were suicides. So the actual number of deaths from other people shooting you is only 12,174.

Doctors, comparatively, kill 783,936 people each year, which is 64 times higher than 12,174. Doctors shoot you not with bullets, but with vaccines, chemotherapy and pharmaceuticals… all of which turn out to be FAR more deadly than guns.

This is especially amazing, given that there are just under 700,000 doctors in America, while there are roughly about 80 million gun owners in America.

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Robert S. Dotson, M.D. ~ The Impending Collapse of American Medicine

Paul Craig Roberts | August 2 2012

BushPaul Craig Roberts writes ~ Just as is every issue in the US, Obamacare and the wider question of the state of American health care are obscured by propaganda and disinformation. In the article below, Dr. Robert S. Dobson looks back on a lifetime of medical practice and provides facts and insights that might help us to understand our situation.

The US medical system is the most expensive on earth without being the best and without providing full coverage. One-sixth of the American population has no medical coverage.

There are two main reasons that US medicine is so expensive. One is that profits are piled upon profits. In addition to wages and salaries for doctors, nurses, and medical personnel, the American health care system has to provide profits for private hospitals, diagnostic centers, insurance companies, and for the accountants, attorneys and management consultants made necessary by the enormous litigation and regulatory compliance cost. American medicine is the most regulated in the world and the most criminalized.

What “Obamacare” does is to divert Medicare and Medicaid monies to the profits of private insurance companies. Instead of providing medical care to those in need, the taxpayers’ money will provide bonuses for insurance executives and profits for their shareholders. It is the height of folly for Obama worshipers to defend a law written by the private insurance companies that uses public revenues to provide insurers with 50 million more customers and to add yet another layer of profits to the cost of American medicine.

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Reflections on a Medical Career
Robert S. Dotson, M.D.

All lovely things will have an ending, All lovely things will fade and die; And youth, that’s now so bravely spending, Will beg a penny by and by.  -Conrad Aiken (“Disenchantment IV”- 1916)

Thirty years have passed since a much younger physician opened his ophthalmology practice in East Tennessee. A lifetime of hopes and expectations, intermingled with the usual collection of fears and uncertainties, has sped past at blinding speed. Children came, grew up, and moved on to their own lives. Parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, many friends and colleagues have returned to dust in advance of their fading photos.

Patients and their parents and children and grandchildren have moved in and out of this world, too, inextricably woven into the fabric of my life. Sadly, a few may have been hurt by lapses in judgment or the arrogance of youthful physician pride and overconfidence. But, at the end of the day, most were helped. I was fortunate to be recognized as a “doctor’s doctor” early on and, though there was no attendant reward other than the respect of peers, that was a sufficiently gratifying laurel to carry.

As in any human story, joy and pain, love and sorrow, have marked these same years. The Millstone of Time has also worn away foolish aspirations and vainglorious pretensions. There is no one left to impress, no accolades to seek, no rank to which to aspire. Consequently, I feel freed to offer some end-of-life reflections on my profession and career.

Any thinking American knows that there is something terribly wrong with the health care system in this country. Throughout my career, the political ruling elite has been enacting piecemeal a version of “universal” healthcare coverage to satisfy the demands of an increasingly vocal, but also increasingly disenfranchised citizenry. Our overlords, of course, have been more motivated by enhancing corporate bottom lines and enriching themselves, than in genuinely helping the peasantry.

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