Medication is more dangerous than driving a car

We think of our road toll as bad, however deaths directly related to medical errors are just under 3 times higher, than deaths from our roads. That is right folk 1500 people die yearly from medication errors. To put this in perspective:

• 86 deaths due to melanoma, so you are 17 times more likely to die from medication errors than melanoma (skin cancer). This is no excuse not to get your moles checked!  In fact the death from medication is approximately the same number of people (1 896) who are diagnosed with skin cancer.
• Over twice as likely to be killed by medical errors as diagnosed with breast cancer (644 women are diagnosed with breast cancer in NZ a year)  
• Approximately twice as likely for you men to be killed from medication, than suicide. 
• The number of people who die from heart disease is 5461. So medication errors kill approximately a third of the death rate of heart disease.

So think about how much media attention and money is spent on breast cancer, skin cancer and heart disease. Yet a relatively simple to solve killer is wiping out a large chunk of NZ'ers every year, yet no body wants to talk about it..... talk about a conspiracy of silence.

Reference: NZ herald 13th December 2005