250,000 Die Annually from Medical Mistakes (NPR)

[KaraG]

Originally Posted by suzy_q2010

Why should a vaccine manufacturer pay for an adverse event that was not caused by a defective vaccine?

All vaccine and drug manufacturers KNOW that a certain percentage of customers will be harmed by their product and they say so in the package insert. The product doesn't have to be defective.

It's a sick, perverted system where innocent people are harmed/killed and the companies that cause it don't have to pay. Instead, people who are harmed are mocked and told they should've known the risk.

They should have funds set aside to help families who are harmed by their products.

[suzy_q2010]

Originally Posted by KaraG

All vaccine and drug manufacturers KNOW that a certain percentage of customers will be harmed by their product and they say so in the package insert. The product doesn't have to be defective.

It's a sick, perverted system where innocent people are harmed/killed and the companies that cause it don't have to pay. Instead, people who are harmed are mocked and told they should've known the risk.

They should have funds set aside to help families who are harmed by their products.

A certain number of people will react adversely to a product that is not defective. Should someone who has an allergic reaction to penicillin be allowed to sue the manufacturer? Sue the peanut farmer because you had an allergic reaction to peanuts?

If it is a known risk then by taking the drug you accept the risk. If you decide the potential benefit does not outweigh the risk, then do not take the drug.

[Mikala43]

A certain number of people are harmed by peanuts, shell fish, etc.

[bobspez]

I can only go by what I have experienced personally. I was not killed in the hospital but came close on three of the 6 times I was hospitalized in my life. I seriously doubt that if I had died it would have been counted anywhere as a medical error. At age 6 my tonsils and adenoids were removed. My aunt had a funny feeling, went to the hospital and found me in the recovery room covered in blood. I had hemmorhaged and no one saw it or reacted to it. Go forward some 50 years. I am recovering from prostate surgery. One of the nurses sets my IV fluids at 10x the correct amount and leaves it there for a couple of days. When my urologist stops by I ask him why my legs are swollen like logs and my genitals are so swollen they look like a hairy beehive. He immediately discontinues the IV drip. When I go home the next day I am 32 lbs heavier than when I went into surgery. Move forward a couple of years to a second prostate surgery. I am on a three way irrigating catheter for a couple of days but no one checks my blood count. I spend a day feeling like I am on Mars then pass out. A crash cart takes me out of the room. I was bleeding heavily and had been irrigated from a Hgb of 14 to a Hgb of 6, close to bleeding out.. Got a total of 6 pints of blood transfusions over the next few days. My brother in law goes to the hospital for heart stents. He wakes up in the middle of the night and tells the night nurse he has a baseball size lump on the inside of his thigh. The night nurse says don't worry, it's just a black and blue. He worries and calls his wife who calls his surgeon, who both rush to the hospital and repairs the ruptured artery in his inner thigh where the stents had been threaded through.
The question is not how many deaths are due to negligence. Rather how much negligence is there. And how much is covered up.

[KaraG]

Originally Posted by suzy_q2010

A certain number of people will react adversely to a product that is not defective.

Exactly. The companies know this, much better than a consumer would. Their insurance should pay for the damage they cause to an individual. The person who dies or suffers an adverse effect shouldn't have to pay.

How about the other thread where a healthy poster is damaged by one week on Cipro? Too bad so sad for her too?

I don't understand the coldness. Why wouldn't you want the 1% of patients that are harmed by a drug to have their damages compensated by the company that harmed them?

I truly think medical care would improve if this was the standard. Instead of paying attorneys, they could be paying doctors and hospitals to help patients heal from the harm. And if too many people were harmed, companies would be quicker to pull dangerous drugs or give more info to doctors to caution patients that may be vulnerable.

[Mikala43]

How does this all differ from someone eating a peanut and having an allergic reaction? All medications come with more information than practically any other item.

You read it, you decide if you want to take it. Some people have a bad reaction, some people have a bad reaction to peanuts....

I took a antibiotic and had a bad reaction, well within the known side effects. That is not negligence or anything on the drug, they say.... "this" happens to some people... Just like if I ate a peanut, and had an allergic reaction.... we know some people are allergic to peanuts.

[jaminhealth]

This is about Medical Mistakes and deaths....not about eating peanuts. I can't believe how these posts go all over the place.

Doing a search again on Medical Mistake Deaths in the U.S. one gets so many varied numbers so who knows.

[suzy_q2010]

Originally Posted by KaraG

Exactly. The companies know this, much better than a consumer would. Their insurance should pay for the damage they cause to an individual. The person who dies or suffers an adverse effect shouldn't have to pay.

How about the other thread where a healthy poster is damaged by one week on Cipro? Too bad so sad for her too?

I don't understand the coldness. Why wouldn't you want the 1% of patients that are harmed by a drug to have their damages compensated by the company that harmed them?

I truly think medical care would improve if this was the standard. Instead of paying attorneys, they could be paying doctors and hospitals to help patients heal from the harm. And if too many people were harmed, companies would be quicker to pull dangerous drugs or give more info to doctors to caution patients that may be vulnerable.

That information is already given to patients. You do not leave the drugstore these days without a sheaf of paper an inch thick about your meds.

If the adverse effects of a medication are disclosed and you take the drug knowing that those adverse effects are possible, you have to be prepared to accept the consequences. People just think it will not happen to them.

The "somebody must pay" attitude is behind the litigation problem in this country.

[suzy_q2010]

Originally Posted by jaminhealth

This is about Medical Mistakes and deaths....not about eating peanuts. I can't believe how these posts go all over the place.

Doing a search again on Medical Mistake Deaths in the U.S. one gets so many varied numbers so who knows.

They are all over the place because they are pulled out of thin air.

[markg91359]

Originally Posted by newtovenice

A friend had a doula with 20 y experience at her side during a hospital birth. The doula identified FIVE MISTAKES that the medical staff made.

FIVE.

So, yes, I believe the numbers. Just ask anyone who has ever been in the hospital. Mistakes all over the place. I would guess that the patients who believe doctor knows best have no clue regarding all the mistakes that are made.

And I realize that you have a very closed mind and will never admit that doctors make mistakes, ever. Because well, they are doctors!!!! They are PERFECT.

And you took this statement that FIVE mistakes had been at face value? You never undertook any sort of independent investigation of your own? You never spoke to your own doctor and asked him/her to discuss these "mistakes"? Did you ever do something really radical like get a textbook on obstetrics and try to research these claims?

I could say a lot here. I will start by saying doula"s are practitioners of alternative medicine and have a turf war going with obstetricians and nurse-midwives. Of course, they are going to try to find fault with conventional medical practitioners its how they justify their niche in this world. Personally, I think trusting someone who doesn't even have the power to prescribe medications during a child birth is foolhardy.

Originally Posted by newtovenice

Where have you ever criticized the medical industry? Cite those posts please /eyeroll/. You post relentlessly in favor of big pharma and the medical industry day after day after day. I've asked people to post links where you have criticized the medical industry and not one link has ever appeared.

When I make mistakes I admit it. I don't pretend they didn't happen and/or hide behind a lawyer and/or patient-sponsored payout system (vaccine manufacturers). I also don't expect people to obey me. /shrug/

And I have posted positive posts re the medical system. Trauma care has been wonderful for saving lives. Antibiotics, also.

But you criticize? Never. All drugs are good for everyone. Doesn't matter what parents say, doesn't matter what personal experiences people have, they're just 100% wrong, because drugs are good, doctors are perfect and if someone dies, well, it's their own fault. They should've read the package insert that being killed was a possibilty.

Nothing is perfect, but modern medicine has a pretty good track record in this country. Vaccines, for example, save thousands of lives every year.

I noticed reading this post, you didn't respond to any of Suzy's questions. Is it too much to expect a reply that is actually on point from you? No, wait I don't need to ask.

Originally Posted by newtovenice

I've never even heard of him/her.

FYI, Paul Offitt is a pediatrician who has taught medicine a the University of Pennsylvania. He has invented a vaccine to prevent rotavirus. He has, in the past, sat on the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices of the Center for Disease Control. He is an extremely learned man who has written and lectured a great deal on vaccines. Your ignorance about Offitt does not surprise me. However, it makes me leery that you have any knowledge about what you are talking about.

Originally Posted by nobodysbusiness

I wish the liars could actually get penalized for publishing lies on this forum - or maybe electric shocks . . . something . . . as it is, the medical establishment promoters don't answer to anyone and get away with murder, much like some of the people they support.

Well, first you have to show that something is a lie. I think that's the problem here. That hasn't been done. Won't get done. Because when it comes to medicine and science the state of knowledge I've seen among those expressing support for alternative medicine is--well--virtually nonexistent. Never do I see citations to studies or reputable medical journal articles. Do you understand the difference between something that is anecdotal and information derived from a controlled study? I've actually participated in a medical study or two and so have my family members.

Originally Posted by bluedevilz

Totally agree...if that comes to pass you should start wearing rubber pants....

CDF has been an education for me. I was blissfully clueless there were so many people who believed so much nonsense for probably the first fifty years of my life.

Originally Posted by KaraG

All vaccine and drug manufacturers KNOW that a certain percentage of customers will be harmed by their product and they say so in the package insert. The product doesn't have to be defective.

It's a sick, perverted system where innocent people are harmed/killed and the companies that cause it don't have to pay. Instead, people who are harmed are mocked and told they should've known the risk.

They should have funds set aside to help families who are harmed by their products.

You have some misunderstanding of the law. Product liability law developed the way that it did because of the unique nature of pharmaceuticals or prescription drugs. Drugs are consumed and virtually everyone's body reacts a little bit different to them. You may be allergic to penicillin. I may be fine with penicillin, but allergic to a completely different drug, a pain killer like Percocet. There is simply no way for drug manufacturers to know how every individual will respond to a drug. Yet, serious complications and allergies are rare and the benefits from drugs may be overwhelming. Its a question of trying to balance risks v. benefits. Ultimately, the courts determined that the best rule of law was that if a drug could win FDA approval to be on the market, than drug manufacturers would only be held responsible for injuries to a patient if they failed to WARN them of potential consequences. The patient gets to make the choice whether taking the medicine is worth it or not. Would you prefer a system where that choice was not allowed? Would you prefer a system where liability was absolute and so no company would take the risk of manufacturing medicines at all? I know how most people would answer those questions.

One caveat should be added to this: If the drug in question is a vaccine covered by the VCF than compensation is available for those injured even if the injury was the result of a condition that was warned against. That is because the fund creates liability without the need to prove fault.

Originally Posted by bobspez

I can only go by what I have experienced personally. I was not killed in the hospital but came close on three of the 6 times I was hospitalized in my life. I seriously doubt that if I had died it would have been counted anywhere as a medical error. At age 6 my tonsils and adenoids were removed. My aunt had a funny feeling, went to the hospital and found me in the recovery room covered in blood. I had hemmorhaged and no one saw it or reacted to it. Go forward some 50 years. I am recovering from prostate surgery. One of the nurses sets my IV fluids at 10x the correct amount and leaves it there for a couple of days. When my urologist stops by I ask him why my legs are swollen like logs and my genitals are so swollen they look like a hairy beehive. He immediately discontinues the IV drip. When I go home the next day I am 32 lbs heavier than when I went into surgery. Move forward a couple of years to a second prostate surgery. I am on a three way irrigating catheter for a couple of days but no one checks my blood count. I spend a day feeling like I am on Mars then pass out. A crash cart takes me out of the room. I was bleeding heavily and had been irrigated from a Hgb of 14 to a Hgb of 6, close to bleeding out.. Got a total of 6 pints of blood transfusions over the next few days. My brother in law goes to the hospital for heart stents. He wakes up in the middle of the night and tells the night nurse he has a baseball size lump on the inside of his thigh. The night nurse says don't worry, it's just a black and blue. He worries and calls his wife who calls his surgeon, who both rush to the hospital and repairs the ruptured artery in his inner thigh where the stents had been threaded through.
The question is not how many deaths are due to negligence. Rather how much negligence is there. And how much is covered up.

This highlights the fact that mistakes do occur within the health care system. Some of those mistakes do constitute legal malpractice. My own mother almost died in the hospital when a doctor doing a hysterectomy failed to close off some blood vessels following surgery. My observation though is that when mistakes do occur that most of the time--like your situation--they get fixed before serious harm occurs. There are not 250,000 deaths a year due to malpractice, but it is a serious problem. I don't discount that. Nor, should we fail to insist on improvements in the standard of care when those improvements are reasonable ones.

Originally Posted by KaraG

Exactly. The companies know this, much better than a consumer would. Their insurance should pay for the damage they cause to an individual. The person who dies or suffers an adverse effect shouldn't have to pay.

How about the other thread where a healthy poster is damaged by one week on Cipro? Too bad so sad for her too?

I don't understand the coldness. Why wouldn't you want the 1% of patients that are harmed by a drug to have their damages compensated by the company that harmed them?

I truly think medical care would improve if this was the standard. Instead of paying attorneys, they could be paying doctors and hospitals to help patients heal from the harm. And if too many people were harmed, companies would be quicker to pull dangerous drugs or give more info to doctors to caution patients that may be vulnerable.

I have to ask why the patient was getting CIPRO. CIPRO is literally a life-saving drug in some situations. I remember when we had some cases of anthrax poisoning. The antibiotic, ciprofloxacin, saved the lives of the majority of people who contracted anthrax.

I think in the last post I did a reasonable job of explaining the liability rules for compensating those injured by pharmaceuticals. There is a rationale for it. There are exceptions.

This is not a perfect system, but the American justice system goes further towards recognizing the rights of injured people than perhaps any other in the world. It strikes a balance and I think that balance is about right.