Personal Injury Prescription error Statistics

There are many different types of personal injury cases out there that a personal injury attorney or lawyer might take. Prescription errors account for a large number of them check out the stats of this issue.

Prescription errors happen more than some would think.

Here are some of the stats that are evidence to this.

Statistics on Medication

• Nearly 2.7 billion retail prescriptions were dispensed in 1999, amounting to $110 billion in sales.
• In 1997, 44 percent of the prescriptions dispensed were refills.
• Almost two-thirds of Americans currently use medicines: 49 percent use prescription drugs and 30 percent use nonprescription medications.
• Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) may be the fourth-to-sixth leading cause of death. Serious ADRs occur in 6.7 percent of hospitalized patients.
• 32 million Americans are taking three or more medications daily.
• Almost 29 percent of Americans stop taking their medicine before it runs out.
• 22 percent of Americans take less of the medication than is prescribed on the label.
• 12 percent of Americans don't fill their prescription at all.
• 12 percent of Americans don't take medication at all after they buy the prescription.
• The No.1 problem in treating illness today is patients' failure to take prescription medications correctly, regardless of patient age.
• 10 percent of all hospital admissions are the result of patients failing to take prescription medications correctly.
• 23 percent of all nursing home admissions are due to patients failing to take prescription medications accurately.
• At any given time, regardless of age group, up to 59 percent of those on five or more medications are taking them improperly.
• The average length of stay in hospitals due to medication noncompliance is 4.2 days.
• More than half of all Americans with chronic diseases don't follow their physician's medication and lifestyle guidance.
• Two-thirds of all Americans fail to take any or all of their prescription medicines.

“-total number of medical errors and deaths equals SIX jumbo jets crashes daily

-The error rate of ICU's (Intensive Care Units) equivalent to the post office losing over 16,000 pieces of mail every hour of every day, banks wrongly cashing 32,000 checks every hour of every day, every year!

-In one decade, the deaths caused by conventional medicine are approximately 8 million. (More than all the casualties from all the wars America have ever fought in.)

• -7,000 patients die each year because of sloppy handwriting
• 7.5 million unnecessary medical and surgical procedures are performed annually
• More than half of the U.S. population has received unnecessary medical treatment. That equates to 50,000 people per day.
• 42% of people have been directly affected by a medical mistake, procedure or drug
• 84% of the population personally know someone who has been a victim of medical error
• the use of prescription drugs is the 3rd leading cause of death in the U.S.
• over 106,000 people die each year from adverse drug reactions
• only 6% of ALL adverse drug reactions are properly identified.
• Most side effects are mistaken for new disease symptoms, leading to further medication & unnecessary medical procedures.
• the death rate for people aged 45-64 who took their prescriptions correctly, rose 90% in only five years
• 400,000 preventable drug-related errors occur in hospitals each year; 800,000 occur in long-term care settings; 530,000 occur in outpatient Medicare clinics
• preventable medication mistakes hurt 1.5 million patients yearly
• the annual death toll from hospitalizations and outpatient care is more than 424,000 people per year

• medical interns who have been awake for over 24 hours, double or triple the nearly 14% of doctor visits were missing test results and other documentation resulting in 44% of patients being adversly affected
• over 59% of patients have received delayed care or duplicate services with doctor visits
• 160,000 lab misidentification errors occur each year
• prescription drug sales are rising well over 18% a year from previous years
• the highest increase of drug consumption is in the age group of two to five year old children
• as of 2001, Pfizer was the number one most profitable company
  (7.8 billion profit that year) of all the Fortune 500 companies
• In 2002, the biggest drug companies spent only 14% of profits on research and development and 31% on marketing and advertising.
• They routinely spend more on advertising than on research.
• 2002 combined profits of the ten drug companies of the Fortune 500 was nearly $36 billion. *That is more than the profits of the other 490 businesses put together.*
• 2004 pharmaceutical industry sales grew to more than $250 billion”

Here is a list of some of the most popular recalled drugs:

• Paxil
• Serzone
• Zyprexa

• Arava®
• Bextra®
• Celebrex®
• VIOXX®

• Baycol

• Ephedra
• Fen-Phen
• Kava
• Meridia®
• Accutane®
• Avandia

• Chantix®
• Fentanyl Pain Patch
• Fluoroquinolones
• Lotronex®
• Mirapex
• Oxycontin®
• Phenylpropanolamine Hydrochloride (PPA)
• Prempro™
• Propulsid®
• Reglan
• Rezulin®
• Yasmin/Yaz

• Autism
• RhoGAM®
• Thimerosal

· Here are the sites with complete details:

· http://www.answer-my-health-question.info/medical-error-statistics.html

· http://www.iom.edu/

and for more information about how to obtain help if you have become a victim of presciption errors contact an attorney.