The Green Pharmacy

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Even if we assume for argument's sake that 100% of us are taking at least one synthetic drug (even I took seven Aleve pills in 1998 for a trick knee) that would mean that between 80 and 120 deaths a year would put conventional pharmaceuticals on a par with the herbal alternatives. Yet, according to two different articles published in JAMA in the last two years, prescription drugs kill nearly a thousand times that many people every year. And we all pay the price, with the estimated costs of drug-related morbidity and mortality in America running dose to $150 billion annually.

Meanwhile, many HMOs still refuse to cover the costs of "unproven"alternat ive therapies. What they ignore, and many of their members may not know, is that plenty of modern medical practices also have not been proven to improve prognosis (e g., angioplasty) and in fact of the in some cases have been shown to do more harm than good. An estimated 8,000 to 20,000 lives are lost each year to commonly, prescribed nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) alone. ( NSAIDS, including aspirin, ibuprofen and naproxen, are capable pain relievers, but prolonged use can lead serious and sometimes fatal damage to the stomach, intestines and kidneys.)

Moreover, according to one JAMA published study, 3 of every 1,000 patients admitted to U.S. hospitals die from the medicine they receive there - whether from a hospital-contracted infection, a fatal drug reaction or some other unforeseen iatrogenic injury.

How, you ask, can all of this be happening under the ever watchful eye of our assiduous FDA? Surely you've heard the expression: "Only time will tell." Of 198 FDA-approved drugs reviewed be tween 1976 and 1985, 51.5% were re called and relabeled to warn against side effects that somehow escaped notic enduring the seven to twelve years of clinical trials generally required before a drug is made available to you and me. Six were found to be so seriously flawed, they were eventually pulled from the market entirely.

More recently, between September 1997 and 1998, five prescription medications - including both halves of that now infamous deadly diet duo fenfluramine and phenter mine, or "fen-phen" were re called due to unexpected adverse reactions.

Now, admittedly, fenfluramine was newer intended as a weight-loss drug, nor was it approved for long-term use (its inclusion in fen-phen is what is known as an "off-label" application). But even when taken appropriately, market drugs still rank, according to a recent JAMA -published study, among the top ten causes of death in the United States.

A Kinder, Gentler Medicine

Faced with skyrocketing health-care costs and uncertain outcomes, Americans are increasingly turning to alternative medicine: In 1990 nonconventional practitioners in the U. S. saw a total 425 million visits - 39 million more than did all of the nation's primary care physicians combined. Why are more and more of us paying out of pocket for nontraditional therapies, when our insurers will cover much of the cost of traditional care? Maybe we are getting helped more or hurt less or both.

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