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Well, the only thing I can say about the AIDS in 1980's I HAD a cousin who I understand was in D.C. and on trials of some drugs. He died and his family was told cancer.
"The expected age at death of a 20-year-old patient starting antiretroviral therapy (ART) after 2008, with a low viral load and after the first year of treatment, was 78 years - similar to the general population."
I was surprised to find out you were right.
I tried to find a chart of AIDS deats in the US from the 80's to the present, by year, and realized data on mortality existed in the 80's and 90's, but after that no published charts show mortality data for the last 10 years or so. There's lots of data on numbers of people diagnosed with HIV, treatment for HIV, etc., but no clear mortality stats by year from the 80's to the near present (eg, 2014) as there are for other diseases. AIDS is not even listed as a cause of death in the US mortality statistics.
Also if you look at government statistics for all causes of death there is also no category for deaths due to adverse drug reactions, even though deaths due to ADR are conservatively estimated at 100,000 per year, though many sources put it at 200,000 per year in the US. Same with preventable hospital infections which are estimated at 200,000 per year. Combined or singly, ADR and Preventable hospital infections are the third leading cause of death in the US, behind cancer and heart disease, and ahead of everything else, but reading official statistics you would never know it.
Just to put it in perspective, ADR and hospital infections combined kill the equivalent of a 9/11 twice a week and have since 9/11. Singly, they each kill the equivalent of one 9/11 a week.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Good4Nothin
Yes that is what they are saying. But just try to find good unambiguous evidence for it.
I was surprised to find out you were right.
I tried to find a chart of AIDS deats in the US from the 80's to the present, by year, and realized data on mortality existed in the 80's and 90's, but after that no published charts show mortality data for the last 10 years or so. There's lots of data on numbers of people diagnosed with HIV, treatment for HIV, etc., but no clear mortality stats by year from the 80's to the near present (eg, 2014) as there are for other diseases. AIDS is not even listed as a cause of death in the US mortality statistics.
Also if you look at government statistics for all causes of death there is also no category for deaths due to adverse drug reactions, even though deaths due to ADR are conservatively estimated at 100,000 per year, though many sources put it at 200,000 per year in the US. Same with preventable hospital infections which are estimated at 200,000 per year. Combined or singly, ADR and Preventable hospital infections are the third leading cause of death in the US, behind cancer and heart disease, and ahead of everything else, but reading official statistics you would never know it.
Just to put it in perspective, ADR and hospital infections combined kill the equivalent of a 9/11 twice a week and have since 9/11. Singly, they each kill the equivalent of one 9/11 a week.
"In 2014, there were 12,333 deaths (due to any cause) of people with diagnosed HIV infection ever classified as AIDS, and 6,721 deaths were attributed directly to HIV." Not all of the deaths are attributed to HIV because people do die from unrelated causes, too, like accidents.
Trends in deaths, with a sharp decline after effective treatment became available:
No, medical errors are not killing hundreds of thousands of patients a year. That estimate includes extrapolation from studies with very small numbers of patients, and the authors of one of the studies counted pretty much every adverse event as an error - even when it was not and even if it was not preventable. Also, one large study was done in Medicare patients, who were at risk to be sicker to begin with.
In addition, the magnitude of the figure is implausible, as noted here:
"But it’s even more than that. Whenever you see an estimate of how many deaths are 'deaths by medicine,' it’s very helpful to compare that estimate with what we know to assess its plausibility. As I mentioned above, According to the CDC, of the 2.6 million deaths that occur every year in the U.S., 715,000 occur in hospitals, which means that, if Makary’s estimates are correct, 35% of all hospital deaths are due to medical errors. But the plausibility of Makary’s estimate is worse than that. Remember that the upper estimate used by Makary and Daniels is 400,000 inpatient deaths due to medical error. That’s 56%—yes, 56%—of all inpatient deaths? Seriously? It’s just not anywhere near plausible that one-third to over one-half of all inpatient deaths in the US are due to medical error. It just isn’t."
Do hospitals and doctors need to do all they can to reduce errors? Yes, obviously, but exaggerating the risk of fatal errors is not helpful. Not all adverse events are caused by errors, and not all adverse events are preventable.
If AIDS mortality statistics are easy to find, kindly post the URL of a single chart of US AIDS related deaths from 1983 to 2014. If you can't, then I ask why not? And AIDS related deaths from any cause seems a bit ambiguous. If you choke to death on a hot dog, or die in a plane crash, that gets counted? Why? Cancer deaths don't count any death for anyone with cancer who dies of something else. Heart disease deaths don't count deaths by accident or suicide. Even the WHO (World Health Organization) only posts one year of statistics (2007) for AIDS related deaths in the US.
If you have been a patient in a hospital or know people who have been hospitalized, then you personally will have narrowly escaped death from hospital incompetence or witnessed it first hand.
I have been in bad hospitals on three occasions and a good hospital once. The differences are staggering and mind blowing to say the least. As is the difference between doctors. Finding a skilled doctor is pretty rare, finding an unskilled one is pretty easy.
You seem to be an apoligist for medecine, pharmaceuticals and hospitals. Yes they save lives and let people live longer under the right conditions. But they also suffer from incompetence and tunnel vision and lack of accountability, and coverups of incompetence and errors. Back in 1971 a movie called The Hospital with George C. Scott ends with Scott saying " We have established the most enormous, medical entity ever conceived and people are sicker than ever! WE CURE NOTHING! WE HEAL NOTHING! " I suggest that when it comes to senior citizens, this is true more often than not.
"In 2014, there were 12,333 deaths (due to any cause) of people with diagnosed HIV infection ever classified as AIDS, and 6,721 deaths were attributed directly to HIV." Not all of the deaths are attributed to HIV because people do die from unrelated causes, too, like accidents.
Trends in deaths, with a sharp decline after effective treatment became available:
No, medical errors are not killing hundreds of thousands of patients a year. That estimate includes extrapolation from studies with very small numbers of patients, and the authors of one of the studies counted pretty much every adverse event as an error - even when it was not and even if it was not preventable. Also, one large study was done in Medicare patients, who were at risk to be sicker to begin with.
In addition, the magnitude of the figure is implausible, as noted here:
"But it’s even more than that. Whenever you see an estimate of how many deaths are 'deaths by medicine,' it’s very helpful to compare that estimate with what we know to assess its plausibility. As I mentioned above, According to the CDC, of the 2.6 million deaths that occur every year in the U.S., 715,000 occur in hospitals, which means that, if Makary’s estimates are correct, 35% of all hospital deaths are due to medical errors. But the plausibility of Makary’s estimate is worse than that. Remember that the upper estimate used by Makary and Daniels is 400,000 inpatient deaths due to medical error. That’s 56%—yes, 56%—of all inpatient deaths? Seriously? It’s just not anywhere near plausible that one-third to over one-half of all inpatient deaths in the US are due to medical error. It just isn’t."
Do hospitals and doctors need to do all they can to reduce errors? Yes, obviously, but exaggerating the risk of fatal errors is not helpful. Not all adverse events are caused by errors, and not all adverse events are preventable.
If AIDS mortality statistics are easy to find, kindly post the URL of a single chart of US AIDS related deaths from 1983 to 2014. If you can't, then I ask why not? And AIDS related deaths from any cause seems a bit ambiguous. If you choke to death on a hot dog, or die in a plane crash, that gets counted? Why? Cancer deaths don't count any death for anyone with cancer who dies of something else. Heart disease deaths don't count deaths by accident or suicide. Even the WHO (World Health Organization) only posts one year of statistics (2007) for AIDS related deaths in the US.
If you have been a patient in a hospital or know people who have been hospitalized, then you personally will have narrowly escaped death from hospital incompetence or witnessed it first hand.
I have been in bad hospitals on three occasions and a good hospital once. The differences are staggering and mind blowing to say the least. As is the difference between doctors. Finding a skilled doctor is pretty rare, finding an unskilled one is pretty easy.
You seem to be an apoligist for medecine, pharmaceuticals and hospitals. Yes they save lives and let people live longer under the right conditions. But they also suffer from incompetence and tunnel vision and lack of accountability, and coverups of incompetence and errors. Back in 1971 a movie called The Hospital with George C. Scott ends with Scott saying " We have established the most enormous, medical entity ever conceived and people are sicker than ever! WE CURE NOTHING! WE HEAL NOTHING! " I suggest that when it comes to senior citizens, this is true more often than not.
I recently spent a eye opening 4.5 months in hospitals/rehabs (3) and I experienced what I believe incompetence from the hospital doctors...and I went over every med/vitamin I was given on the med runs.
If AIDS mortality statistics are easy to find, kindly post the URL of a single chart of US AIDS related deaths from 1983 to 2014. If you can't, then I ask why not? And AIDS related deaths from any cause seems a bit ambiguous. If you choke to death on a hot dog, or die in a plane crash, that gets counted? Why? Cancer deaths don't count any death for anyone with cancer who dies of something else. Heart disease deaths don't count deaths by accident or suicide. Even the WHO (World Health Organization) only posts one year of statistics (2007) for AIDS related deaths in the US.
If you have been a patient in a hospital or know people who have been hospitalized, then you personally will have narrowly escaped death from hospital incompetence or witnessed it first hand.
I have been in bad hospitals on three occasions and a good hospital once. The differences are staggering and mind blowing to say the least. As is the difference between doctors. Finding a skilled doctor is pretty rare, finding an unskilled one is pretty easy.
You seem to be an apoligist for medecine, pharmaceuticals and hospitals. Yes they save lives and let people live longer under the right conditions. But they also suffer from incompetence and tunnel vision and lack of accountability, and coverups of incompetence and errors. Back in 1971 a movie called The Hospital with George C. Scott ends with Scott saying " We have established the most enormous, medical entity ever conceived and people are sicker than ever! WE CURE NOTHING! WE HEAL NOTHING! " I suggest that when it comes to senior citizens, this is true more often than not.
If you can't find this information, it's because you haven't looked very hard, it's certainly out there, there's about everything you ever wanted to know ( and on about 4th grade level reading, so you ought to understand it) about AIDS, including statistics, on the CDC site. I did a google search for "AIDS deaths since 1983", and came up with the following search results including a graph showing AIDS deaths since 1983. I'm just linking the search results below, you can read through them as you wish.
If AIDS mortality statistics are easy to find, kindly post the URL of a single chart of US AIDS related deaths from 1983 to 2014. If you can't, then I ask why not? And AIDS related deaths from any cause seems a bit ambiguous. If you choke to death on a hot dog, or die in a plane crash, that gets counted? Why? Cancer deaths don't count any death for anyone with cancer who dies of something else. Heart disease deaths don't count deaths by accident or suicide. Even the WHO (World Health Organization) only posts one year of statistics (2007) for AIDS related deaths in the US.
If you have been a patient in a hospital or know people who have been hospitalized, then you personally will have narrowly escaped death from hospital incompetence or witnessed it first hand.
I have been in bad hospitals on three occasions and a good hospital once. The differences are staggering and mind blowing to say the least. As is the difference between doctors. Finding a skilled doctor is pretty rare, finding an unskilled one is pretty easy.
You seem to be an apoligist for medecine, pharmaceuticals and hospitals. Yes they save lives and let people live longer under the right conditions. But they also suffer from incompetence and tunnel vision and lack of accountability, and coverups of incompetence and errors. Back in 1971 a movie called The Hospital with George C. Scott ends with Scott saying " We have established the most enormous, medical entity ever conceived and people are sicker than ever! WE CURE NOTHING! WE HEAL NOTHING! " I suggest that when it comes to senior citizens, this is true more often than not.
I did post such a chart. The link is in the post you just quoted. Here it is again, covering from 1981 to 2007.
The CDC issues an annual surveillance report. You can search for it by year. Note that the totals are somewhat fluid and change from year to year because data collection results in some deaths not being reported in the year they happen. Here is the one for 2015.
From the 2014 figure I previously quoted, about half the total deaths were directly attributable to HIV. Trying to specifically separate those due only to HIV increases expense with not much added value. The total number of deaths of HIV infected persons can be tracked in order to identify trends. What was seen was a dramatic drop in deaths in the two years or so after highly active antiretroviral therapy was introduced in 1995 and a more gradual drop since then.
This whole discussion came about when a previous poster essentially said drugs for HIV do not work. They do. Currently the problem is getting people tested so that that those who do not know they have HIV can be started on treatment, then keeping them on treatment, which can be a problem in some high risk populations. However, those who are identified early and stay on treatment can now expect to have pretty much the same life expectancy they would if they did not have HIV.
Bashing medicine seems to be a popular pastime here on CD, often to promote "alternative medicine", which for the most part has no evidence to support it. I am sorry you have had bad experiences. I have not and know of no one in my family who has. What do you say if a patient decides not to go to the hospital at all because he gets the impression that a "mistake" is going to kill him? If he dies because he did not get treatment, who gets blamed for that "mistake"?
Mr. Scott was wrong. Modern medicine does cure and it does heal. When it does not, often it is due to non-compliance on the part of the patient. If you want doctors and hospitals to be more transparent about errors there will have to be major tort reform first. The emphasis needs to be on finding and fixing issues that impair patient safety, not on placing blame in order to generate lawsuits.
As far as seniors are concerned, aging causes medical problems to accumulate. If you are over 65 years old and you are hospitalized you have a much greater chance that you have a serious condition making that hospitalization necessary. That is one of the reasons the study that concluded medicine kills 250,000 people a year is terribly flawed, because it was largely based on a Medicare population. For example, say you have a 72 year old man with terminal pancreatic cancer who is admitted with pneumonia. A dose of antibiotic is not given when it should have been: an error. The man dies while in the hospital. Are we really going to attribute his death to one delayed dose of antibiotic? That is not reasonable, but that is the sort of thing that resulted in the "medicine is killing hundreds of thousands of Americans" story.
We can also ask if the man with late stage pancreatic cancer should have been hospitalized for his pneumonia at all, which is a topic for a different discussion. However, the decision to do so depends on whether there is a reasonable expectation that the infection could be cured and the man returned to his previous level of function, whatever it was. Also, that decision is often driven by the wishes of the patient and his family, who may choose differently from what the doctor suggests.
Last edited by suzy_q2010; 06-06-2017 at 04:05 PM..
Hey Suzy, why can't we all have our opinions and let it go at that. Many here want alternative/holistic healing and I'd say MOST are allopathic. And it's great that so many who take the pharma drugs don't have side effects. I did and that's why I shy from them and I've had friends and family members too who had nasty side effects, like my daughter who lost her hearing from a combo of drugs from an allopathic doc. And my sister just died from allopathic medicine to treat the MS in her body.
Because this is not the Alternative section and you can't go around stating opinions as facts.
It's irresponsible and dangerous.
And why should one person have their say, and not another? There are blogs available if you just want to type out your opinions, but this is a discussion board.
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