Are Prescription Drugs Americans’ 3rd Leading Cause of Death?

Are Big Pharma and the medical industry in America responsible for a deadly pandemic? Are prescription drugs one of the leading causes of death in our country now?

In an opinion piece for The Epoch Times, medical researcher and Cochrane Collaboration co-founder Dr. Peter Gøtzsche highlighted the little-discussed crisis of prescription drug deaths in America. According to data he collected, hundreds of thousands of Americans die annually from prescribed medications, often in error. That doesn’t include the many Americans dying from non-prescribed drugs like illegal fentanyl.

In 2013, I estimated that our prescription drugs are the third leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer, and in 2015, that psychiatric drugs alone are also the third leading cause of death. However, in the United States, it is commonly stated that our drugs are “only” the fourth leading cause of death. This estimate was derived from a 1998 meta-analysis of 39 U.S. studies where monitors recorded all adverse drug reactions that occurred while the patients were in hospital, or which were the reason for hospital admission.

The top two causes of death in America, according to the CDC, are heart disease at 695,547 deaths annually, and cancer at 605,213 deaths. The CDC asserts that COVID-19 is the third highest cause of death, per Gøtzsche, but we all know the numbers on that are grossly inflated, as Gøtzsche noted.

He provided detailed data and explanations in his piece for an annual prescription drug death estimate of 389,940. But he also provided sobering context: “My estimate misses many drug deaths in those younger than 65 years; it only included three classes of psychiatric drugs; and it did not include hospital deaths.” So what is a more comprehensive number? Gøtzsche’s estimate based on the data and information he reviewed is staggering indeed because it would seem to top the list of causes of death in America:

If we add the estimates above, 315,000 hospital deaths, 390,000 psychiatric drug deaths, 70,000 synthetic opioid deaths, and 107,000 NSAID deaths, we get 882,000 drug deaths in the United States annually.

I cannot confirm if Gøtzsche‘s data is accurate. I can, however, provide countless stories from personal experience of irresponsible prescriptions that tally with Gøtzsche’s argument that many errors occur. The number of times my friends or I — in multiple different states, with multiple different doctors, in a wide variety of specialties —were prescribed drugs which the doctor admitted upon questioning caused the very side effects they were supposed to solve is insane! Then there are the doctors who refuse further treatment if you don’t agree to take their damaging drugs and the doctors who start prescribing you pills before any tests are performed.

Doctors have too often become Big Pharma shills. There are bound to be serious mistakes with prescriptions, even if they’re not intentional. That’s just on the doctors' side — imagine how many people take pills without doing their own research or who overdose! If there is one thing we learned during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is that the medical industry does not always put people’s well-being above money, success, or “expert advice." And Americans are likely not as cautious about taking pills as they should be.

Are prescription drugs one of America’s top causes of death? While we cannot say for certain, Gøtzsche’a data shows that at least more research needs to be done and more actions taken to address this potential and very deadly crisis.