Drugwatch: Prescription drug deaths on the rise

This article from DrugWatch portrays the dimension of the harms of prescribed drugs.

It's a must-read since all people will have to face a health problem.

Information is the weapon not to be harmed by medicines that are on the market because of greed but are harmful some in a lethal degree.



Excerpts:

Prescription Drug Deaths On The Rise



The statistics and the facts are staggering: More than 40 people a day across the country die from prescription pain medication overdoses; more and more doctors are getting huge payouts from pharmaceutical companies to promote these drugs; and in the past 10 years, U.S. spending on prescription drugs rose 475 percent.



The relationship between doctors and pharmaceutical goliaths has reached the point of being suspiciously cozy, ethically questionable and life-threatening to unsuspecting patients at risk of drug addiction and death. And those most affected aren’t who you think.



Gone are the days when society’s drug addicts are the strung-out junkies living in crack houses – people you see on the 11 o’clock news. No, many of today’s addicts are your neighbors, church friends and children – maybe even your own children. And many of them got their start from their own trusted physicians.



Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told Fox News that doctors are handing out narcotics like candy. Some doctors are giving patients prescriptions for narcotics for minor injuries when other medications could work just as well.



“When I went to medical school, we were incorrectly assured, ‘Don’t worry, if patients have short-term pain, they won’t get hooked. That was completely wrong, and a generation of doctors, patients and families learned that’s a tragic mistake."



Painkiller Epidemic



"In November 2011, the CDC, the country’s national public health institute, announced that deaths from prescription drugs more than tripled in the past decade. Nationwide, the most abused medications are narcotic pain relievers like hydrocodone (Vicodin) and oxycodone (OxyContin); depressants like diazepam (Valium); and stimulants such as Adderall. (keep reading)