Disclaimer: Pharmaceutical medications synthetically alter biochemistry to produce desired outcomes in body function. They all have side effects and commonly present serious risks, deaths and suffering. Medication has its purpose and helps many people in the relief of symptoms and the treatment of sickness and disease. Pharmaceutical drugs are commonly used in the health care industry but they don’t cure anyone, and don’t remove the root cause of problems.
Medical doctors educated to prescribe medications attempt to help their patients in the best way they know how. People prescribed drugs for health problems aren’t warned of their potential associated risks, and often take several drugs together for years with unknown outcomes. Prescription drugs are commonly overprescribed, under researched, and all are poisons. The wrong dosage, drug interactions and reactions regularly kills people. Drugs have been taken off the market for their harmful effects, having caused serious health problems to the people prescribed them. Pharmaceutical companies have paid out billions in lawsuits for the deadly effects of medications experimented on the public. Take them with extreme caution.
Here’s the devastating facts of how drugs are affecting people.
- 1,000 capsules of Tylenol in a lifetime doubles the risk of end stage renal disease. (New England Journal of Medicine, 1994)
- Taking the correct drug for the correct diagnoses in the correct dose will kill about 106,000 Americans per year, making it the 4th most common cause of death in the US. (Journal of the American Medical Association, 1998)
- Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs for rheumatoid and/or osteoarthritis conservatively cause 16,500 Americans to bleed to death each year, making that the 15th most common cause of death in the US. (New England Journal of Medicine, 1999)
- Those who consumed the highest amounts of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory pain drugs increased their risk of dementia, including Alzheimer’s dementia, by 66%. (Neurology, 2009)
- Prescription opioids (such as oxycodone, hydrocodone, and methadone) were involved in nearly 14,000 overdose deaths in the U.S. in 2019.
- Benzodiazepines (such as Xanax, Valium, and Ativan) are involved in about 8,000-10,000 overdose deaths per year in the U.S. Benzodiazepines are particularly risky when combined with other central nervous system depressants.
- Anticoagulants, such as Warfarin and others are associated with thousands of deaths annually, primarily due to bleeding complications. Estimates suggest that they contribute to around 10-20% of fatal ADRs, particularly in older adults.
- Antidepressants, particularly SSRIs, can increase the risk of suicide, especially in younger populations. SSRIs have been linked to several thousand deaths annually, often related to overdose or suicide.
- Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs) such as ibuprofen and naproxen, are associated with around 7,000-16,000 deaths per year in the U.S. due to gastrointestinal bleeding and cardiovascular complications.
- Prescription vs. Illicit Drugs: The CDC reported that in 2021, more than 100,000 people died from drug overdoses in the U.S., with prescription drugs playing a significant role. However, illicit drugs, especially synthetic opioids like fentanyl, have overtaken prescription opioids as the leading cause of overdose deaths.
- Fentanyl caused reported 87,000 deaths in 2023-2024
- Polypharmacy and Drug Interactions compound the risk of death increases significantly with the use of multiple drugs. Drug-drug interactions are responsible for a significant proportion of the estimated 100,000 to 200,000 annual deaths from prescription drugs.
- A study published in JAMA found that about 40% of older adults in the U.S. take five or more medications, heightening the risk of harmful interactions.
- Hypoglycemia, a common side effect of insulin and other antidiabetic drugs, is associated with thousands of deaths annually, particularly among older adults with Type 2 diabetes.
- Physician office visits average 71.9% use of drug therapies.
- The percent of persons using at least one prescription drug in the past 30 days is 48.6%. The percent of persons using three or more prescription drugs in the past 30 days is 24.0%.
- One in 25 patients treated in U.S. hospitals every year will develop a healthcare-associated infection, According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
- Over 250,000 people in the U.S. die each year because of medical errors, making it the third leading cause of death in this country behind heart disease and cancer, according to a Johns Hopkins study.