Atlanta, Georgia Personal Injury Lawyer
Drug, Alcohol Mix Increases Medication Error Deaths (Update1)
John Taddei of Bloomberg reported today that the mixing of street drugs and alcohol with prescription medications has contributed to a fivefold increase in the number of deaths ascribed to medication errors since the 1980s, according to a study.
The combination of a person taking medications at home with alcohol or street drugs, or with both, accounted for 17 percent of the fatal errors in 2004, up from 2.3 percent in 1983, according to a University of California, San Diego study that examined U.S. death certificates. The study was published today in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
The rise in accidental deaths linked to medication errors has occurred as drug consumption has increasingly shifted to homes from hospitals and clinics, said David P. Phillips, the study's author and a professor of sociology at the university, in telephone interview today.
``More and more often the patient is put in charge of quality control rather than medical staff, and some patients aren't up to it,'' Phillips said. ``We haven't been sufficiently aware that some patients cannot follow directions as scrupulously as nurses or physicians.''
Accidental overdoses were the most deadly error, killing 8,634 people in their homes in 2004. More people in the 45-to-54 age group die of accidental drug overdoses than in car crashes, according to congressional testimony in March by Leonard J. Paulozzi, an epidemiologist for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
``The vast majority of unintentional drug overdose deaths are not the result of toddlers getting into medicines or the elderly mixing up their pills,'' Paulozzi said during the testimony. ``All available evidence suggests that these deaths are related to the increasing use of prescription drugs, especially opioid painkillers, among people during the working years of life.''
To contact the reporter on this story: John Taddei in New York at jtaddei3@bloomberg.net
John Taddei of Bloomberg reported today that the mixing of street drugs and alcohol with prescription medications has contributed to a fivefold increase in the number of deaths ascribed to medication errors since the 1980s, according to a study.
The combination of a person taking medications at home with alcohol or street drugs, or with both, accounted for 17 percent of the fatal errors in 2004, up from 2.3 percent in 1983, according to a University of California, San Diego study that examined U.S. death certificates. The study was published today in the Archives of Internal Medicine.
The rise in accidental deaths linked to medication errors has occurred as drug consumption has increasingly shifted to homes from hospitals and clinics, said David P. Phillips, the study's author and a professor of sociology at the university, in telephone interview today.
``More and more often the patient is put in charge of quality control rather than medical staff, and some patients aren't up to it,'' Phillips said. ``We haven't been sufficiently aware that some patients cannot follow directions as scrupulously as nurses or physicians.''
Accidental overdoses were the most deadly error, killing 8,634 people in their homes in 2004. More people in the 45-to-54 age group die of accidental drug overdoses than in car crashes, according to congressional testimony in March by Leonard J. Paulozzi, an epidemiologist for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
``The vast majority of unintentional drug overdose deaths are not the result of toddlers getting into medicines or the elderly mixing up their pills,'' Paulozzi said during the testimony. ``All available evidence suggests that these deaths are related to the increasing use of prescription drugs, especially opioid painkillers, among people during the working years of life.''
To contact the reporter on this story: John Taddei in New York at jtaddei3@bloomberg.net
Labels: atlanta, car accidents, wrongful death
posted by Michael L. Neff # 11:45 AM 
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