Vaccinations and Western Medication

 

Today pharmaceutical drugs are being prescribed and passed out at an alarming rate.  Many of these drugs are “wonder drugs” allowing people to live an increased quality of life by relieving pain and illness.  These drugs are effective and very very powerful, non of these drugs should be used lightly. 

 

Medical errors in hospital surgeries are happening, everyday and are probably more common than you think.  Susan Martinuk lives in Vancouver and was very surprised when she came out of knee surgery to find out that the doctor had operated on the wrong knee !!  Her experience was not uncommon.  According to the Canadian Medical Association Journal there are over 185,000 medical errors per year in Canada alone.  This means that almost 8% of people going into the hospital will experience an error.  These errors result in the death of anywhere between 9,000 to 24,000 Canadians per year!  This means that in the average year approximately 16,000 people will die due to a medical “error” yet we rarely hear of it.  Is it acceptable that our Canadian hospitals are one of the leading CAUSES of disease and death?

 

According to the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) prescription drugs are responsible for over 100,000 deaths per year.  These are properly prescribed drugs, not drug abuse or overdoses (these were not included in these figures).  This information means that properly prescribed medication kills the equivalent of four packed jumbo jets crashing into the ground every day!  

 

Today, the average person goes to their doctor expecting unrealistic perfection.  We have a perception that our Medical Doctors are flawless in both their diagnosis and treatment.

We as patients generally hesitate to ask our medical doctors about the prescriptions made out to us.  Medical Doctors may be reluctant to report any errors fearing their career, reputation and decreased public confidence.

 

Everyone should have “informed choice” when choosing what medicine (natural or pharmacological) to take, but with today’s so called scientific safety trials not one of us really knows what is safe and what is effective. 

 

If I personally had to choose between a new drug which was recently approved by Health Canada and the FDA or that of a Chinese medicine herb which had been used for thousands of years, I would choose the herb.