Medication Mistakes Blameless but Still Deadly

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- Deaths from medication mistakes at home, such as actor Heath Ledger's accidental overdose, rose dramatically during the past two decades, an analysis of U.S. death certificates finds ~ CNN

Medication mistakes, drug errors, and even accidental overdose certainly sound less frightening than drug abuse, but as the reference to Heath Ledger suggests, they are no less deadly. Furthermore, much of the time these sanitized terms are outright misrepresentations; Heath Ledger didn’t die from an accidental overdose, he died because he was abusing prescription pain killers, psychiatric medications, and sleeping pills.

Accidently taking Oxycontin instead of aspirin could cause an accidental overdose, misreading a prescription would be a mistake, but self medicating with a hodgepodge of drugs is a premeditated willful act. While some may say it’s arguing semantics, I can’t help but wonder why there is no accountability when it comes to prescription drug abuse? Unlike the “blameless” act of “accidently” downing a methadone wafer with a tallboy, you don’t often hear of the cocaine error or heroin mistake.

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Here a few key stats from a examination of nearly 50 million U.S. death certificates as published in Monday's Archives of Internal Medicine and reported in the CNN article, Home Deaths from Drug Errors.

• 224,000 involved fatal medication errors, including overdoses and mixing prescription drugs with alcohol or street drugs.
• Deaths from medication mistakes at home increased from 1,132 deaths in 1983 to 12,426 in 2004. Adjusted for population growth, that amounts to an increase of more than 700 percent during that time.
• The increase was steepest in death rates from mixing medicine with alcohol or street drugs at home; that death rate climbed from 0.04 per 100,000 people in 1983 to 1.29 per 100,000 people in 2004.

While writing this post a very relevant headline popped up on my news feed, Amy Winehouse rushed to hospital after suffering reaction to medication.

Anyone want to place a bet over what caused this “reaction”?