(These statistics come from a web site we found and have not been verified for accuracy. The numbers should get you to stop and think and hopefully search for more information.)

Someone read a recent article in the Seattle Washington Post-Intelligencer concerning accidental deaths caused by physicians, from research of Laura Key, USA. This triggered a chain of thought that resulted in the person
cruising the web to find some statistics, and doing a few simple calculations:

Number of physicians in the US 700,000
Accidental deaths caused by doctors each year 120,000
Accidental deaths per physician per year 0.171
Number of gun owners in the US 80,000,000
Number of accidental gun deaths per year (all age groups) 1,500
Accidental deaths per gun owner per year0.0000188
Physician Death Rate / Gun Owner Death Rate9000

Therefore, Medical Doctors are approximately 9000 times more dangerous than gun owners.

Source: http://www.cssa.org/articles/dr_deaths.html

planetc1.com-news @ 9:15 am | Article ID: 949342541

Below is a list of hyper-linked articles on vaccination issues that may be of value to you and your practice community.

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Protection Against Atopic Diseases by Measles: A Rash Conclusion?

Journal American Medical Association JAMA
Vol. 283 No. 3, January 19, 2000 Editorial

Full Text at http://jama.ama-assn.org/issues/v283n3/full/jed90098.html

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Journal articles of flu vaccine adverse reactions

http://www.whale.to/Vaccines/flu_d.html

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Government urges use of polio shots rather than oral vaccine

Full Text at http://www.star-telegram.com/news/doc/1047/1:FRONT57/1:FRONT570121100.html
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Parents’ Group Urges Physicians to Return Existing Supplies of Oral Polio
Vaccine (OPV)

Oral Vaccine Manufacturer Will Take Back Remaining Supplies From Physicians
SOURCE: Informed Parents Against VAPP

Full Text at http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/000121/dc_cdc_ora_1.html

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Warning on Food Vaccine Plan

Full Text at http://www.theage.com.au/news/20000121/A38454-2000Jan21.html

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CDC’s MMWR Notice to Readers: Recommended Childhood Immunization Schedule —
United States, 2000

Full Article at http://www.cdc.gov/epo/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4902a4.htm

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CDC’s MMWR Summary of Notifiable Diseases, United States, 1998

December 31, 1999/Vol. 47/No. 53

If you ever wanted to know how many cases of a disease are actually reported in the US to better evaluate the risks when looking at vaccines, here’s the place to go…

http://www.cdc.gov/epo/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm4753a1.htm

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Unique Restaurant Corp. First in Industry to Mandate Hepatitis A Vaccine

Monday January 17, 8:45 am Eastern Time
SOURCE: Unique Restaurant Corporation

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Drug Company Gifts May Affect the Way Doctors Practice Medicine

Study Shows Physicians Unaware of Industry Influence
By Elaine Zablocki
WebMD Medical News

Full Article at http://my.webmd.com/content/article/1728.54165

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Physicians rarely give patients enough information

Full Article at http://www.ama-assn.org/sci-pubs/amnews/pick_00/prsc0117.htm

planetc1.com-news @ 12:52 pm | Article ID: 948577969

Results from a recent survey published in the January issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, indicate that approximately 1 in every 5,000 patients receiving liposuction by a board certified plastic surgeon in the United States over a 4-year period died from complications of the procedure.

According to the report, Americans are at higher risk of dying from liposuction than from traffic accidents, based on 1996 figures.

The report also notes that in some cases, physicians other than plastic surgeons are performing the liposuction procedures, some with little more training than a weekend seminar.

The study compared survey results with the total number of liposuctions performed during a 4-year period and found the mortality rate for that period to be about 20 per 100,000, or 1 in every 5,000 procedures.

Source: Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, January 2000

Several Articles on this topic are available (links no longer functional)…

FOX News: Liposuction death rate is 1 in 5,000 patients
FOX News: Liposuction survey says procedure can be deadly
Yahoo Health News: Liposuction death rate is 1 in 5,000 patients
MSNBC Health: Survey – Liposuction can be deadly

planetc1.com-news @ 8:18 am | Article ID: 948388710

By Michael Dorausch, D.C.

The Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine reports this week on the homeopathic and naturopathic practices of some practitioners in Massachusetts.

According to the survey, most of the providers questioned said that they do not actively recommend immunization. More than 50% of doctors in the survey were licensed medical doctors. Fewer than half of the nonphysician practitioners reported that they would refer a 2-week-old with a fever to a medical doctor or emergency medical facility.

According to the survey, initial patient visits typically lasted more than 1 hour and cost $140 to $150. The survey concluded that many patients using homeopathy and naturopathy are children with visits to these providers being frequent and fees primarily being paid out-of-pocket.

Two of the doctors in the survey held Doctor of Chiropractic degrees.

The Yahoo News headline read like linkbait: Alternative practitioners may miss serious illness in children

Source article (link no longer available) Homeopathy and Naturopathy Practice: Characteristics and Pediatric Care

planetc1.com-news @ 6:07 am | Article ID: 948294433

News of the passing of Dr. Price has been forwarded to us.
We are including the forwarded information in its entirety.
———-P-C———-

Dr. Galen Price, the fourth President of Palmer College of Chiropractic,
died on Monday, Jan. 17, 2000, in Lakeland, Fla. He was the first
president of the College who was not a member of the Palmer family,
succeeding to the presidency upon the death of Dr. David Palmer in 1978.

Remembering Dr. Price, the current President of the College, Dr. Guy
Riekeman, offered the following:

“If you plant for a year, you plant corn.
If you plant for a century, you plant a tree.
If you plant for a millennium, you plant ideas and educate students.”

– Anonymous

“Galen Price changed the world by planting ideas in generation after
generation of chiropractic students. He taught my father, he taught me,
he taught the profession. He was kind and gentle, witty and caring,
strong in principle; a colleague, a mentor, a friend. The world and our
profession have lost an irreplaceable gem; today we will mourn, tomorrow
we will celebrate, but for all time let’s not forget the gift he gave –
the gift that was his life.”

Born on March 25, 1912, Galen Price was a native of Larned, Kansas. He
attended Clark University in Massachusetts and graduated from Palmer
School of Chiropractic in 1936. He was a veteran of World War II, having
served as a lieutenant in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in the South
Pacific from 1941 to 1944.

He served at the College as Dean of Faculty, Chairman of the Department of
Chiropractic Sciences and Dean of Philosophy. He was named Chairman of the
Administrative Executive Committee in 1976 and Administrator of the
College in 1977.

Although contemplating retirement, he agreed to serve as President so that
the Board of Trustees could conduct a thorough search for the next
President. He served until Dr. Jerome McAndrews was appointed in 1979.

Among his many honors were an honorary Doctor of Chiropractic Humanities
from Palmer in 1968, being named a Fellow in the Palmer Academy of
Chiropractic in 1990, ICA Chiropractor of the Year in 1977 and the ICA’s
Herbert Ross Reaver Award for Lifetime Service in 1999. The Palmer Student
Council named Dr. Price “Mr. Philosophy of Chiropractic” in 1973.

Survivors include his wife, Dr. Lorene Price, 916 Forrest Lake Dr.,
Lakeland, FL 33809, and sons Galen Jr., David, Charles and George, and
daughters Patricia and Mary Lorene.

Visitation is tentatively scheduled at Halligan-McCabe-Devries Funeral
Home, 614 N. Main St., Davenport, for Friday, Jan. 21, with Funeral Mass
to be conducted on Saturday at St. Paul the Apostle Church, 916 E.
Rusholme St., Davenport. Details are expected later today and will be
made available in a later announcement. A memorial service is being
planned for the Palmer community, subject to the wishes of the Price
family. Details on that event will also be announced later.

———-P-C———-
We will update information on visitation and services when we receive it.

planetc1.com-news @ 12:09 pm | Article ID: 948229748

This article was reported on in April by ABCNEWS.com. We had some requests from doctors looking for this article so the link has been added here.

ABCNEWS: Ritalin May Lead to Drug Abuse

planetc1.com-news @ 6:08 am | Article ID: 948208092

As reported in this weeks American Medical News, the CDC has found that the widely used antibiotic, erythromycin may be associated with infantile hypertrophic pyloric stenosis in very young infants.

At a community hospital in Tennessee, seven infants receiving erythromycin for exposure to pertussis developed infantile hypertrophic pyloric stenosis over the next seven months, according to the CDC.

Some doctors feel that is a small number compared to the more than 100 children that received the antibiotic at that hospital.

Although thousands of kids are receiving treatment with erythromycin, the concern of some doctors is it’s increasing “off label” use. This antibiotic may be being increasingly prescribed to more infants in cases it has never been studied for. Rather than being used in life threatening situations, the drug may be developing increasing popularity as a stimulant.

Some doctors have said the CDC finding is redundant evidence of the need for drug trials. “We have learned over and over again that the assumption that children are little adults, or infants are little children, is dangerous,” said Philip Walson, MD, chief of clinical pharmacology at Children’s Hospital, Columbus, Ohio. “If you want to use a drug in children, it needs to be studied in children.”

CDC Homepage: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
AMNews: CDC report warns pediatricians about widely used antibiotic

planetc1.com-news @ 6:21 am | Article ID: 947604108

U.S. health spending for 1998 rose 5.6 percent in relation to the previous year as reported by Nando Media.

Rising costs for prescription drugs and higher insurance premiums are the primary cause for increases in the nation’s health care spending.

Total health care spending for 1998 was up 5.6 percent, compared with 4.7 percent in 1997, according to an annual report from the Health Care Financing Administration. 1998 saw the biggest cost increase since an 8.7 percent jump in 1993.

HCFA’s report was published in the public policy journal Health Affairs.

According to the report, overall health care spending rose to $4,094 per person in 1998, or a total of $1.1 trillion – from $3,912 per person in 1997. Spending on prescription drugs grew more than any other category, climbing by 15.4 percent in 1998 to $90.6 billion.

With more news drugs coming to market more rapidly, growth in drug costs has been steadily accelerating since 1993.

Two articles contain in depth information on health spending through 1998. An article titled “Health Spending in 1998: Signals of Change” will appear in the January/February 2000 issue of Health Affairs, a publication of Project Hope. A second article on this topic will appear in the Winter 1999 issue of the Health Care Financing Review, the journal of the Health Care Financing Administration.

Nando Media: Health spending rose 5.6 percent in 1998
HFCA: Health Care Financing Administration

planetc1.com-news @ 7:51 am | Article ID: 947523117

According to recent reports, the controversial drug Ritalin is beginning to be phased out of the marketplace in favor of a powerful blend of amphetamines known as Adderall.

Adderall is reported to be twice as potent as Ritalin (like crack is to cocaine?) and was originally marketed as an obesity drug in Canada. Adderall is beginning to see a larger market share of drugs prescribed to treat ADHD.

Adderall consists of a blend of four amphetamines, including Dexedrine and Benzedrine. Parents and doctors report that the drug lasts longer than Ritalin, eight hours per dose as compared to Ritalins four hours.

The drug has also gained popularity on high school and college campuses where many kids are choosing to snort it. Adderall is pure amphetamine and is known to cause cell death in animals. What affect will it have on the brains of children?

In October, Planet Chiropractic featured an article on Adderall titled: “Did the Rx Kill, or the Father?” in which a college student slipped into a psychotic fog and killed his infant daughter ten days after he began taking Adderall to control his attention deficit disorder and help him with his college studies.

Adderalls labeling clearly warns that in very rare circumstances, it can cause “psychotic episodes at recommended doses.”

Related Articles:
Planet Chiropractic: Did the Rx Kill, or the Father?
ABCNews: A Potent Amphetamine Gains a Young Following
ABCNews: Ritalin Parents Defend the Drug
Doctors Guide to the Internet: FDA Clears Use of Adderall for Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder

planetc1.com-news @ 8:18 am | Article ID: 947351902

The January 8th issue of the British Medical Journal reports that two thirds of children in a recent study, in European hospitals have received unlicensed drugs.

The practice of prescribing drugs that have not been approved for use in children is widespread, European researchers report. There is a considerable concern in both Europe and the United States about the use of “unlicensed or off label drugs in children.”

The BMJ reports that many drugs used to treat children in hospitals are either not licensed for use in children or are prescribed outside the terms of their product license which is known as off label prescribing. Researchers in the study found that two thirds of the children admitted to general pediatric wards received an unlicensed or off label drug prescription during their hospital stays.

The authors note that some unlicensed and off label drug use may be necessary and appropriate. Yet some drugs, such as antibiotics, would be toxic to children if administered according to the directions for adult patients. The use of off label drugs may present unknown hazards to children.

BMJ: Two thirds of children in European hospitals receive unlicensed drugs
Fox News: Drugs prescribed for children need better testing

planetc1.com-news @ 1:12 pm | Article ID: 947283137