The death toll
As a side bar to today’s e-Alert I want to take a quick look at one of the barometers that measures the safety of herbal and dietary supplements. After all, when the FDA starts talking about impurities and protecting the public health, what they’re really talking about is safety. So let’s look at some numbers that will put safety into perspective.
Between 1989 and 1998 the number of deaths per year associated with dietary supplements averaged a little more than six per year. Let’s round that up to seven per year, for a total of 63 deaths over nine years. I don’t mean to make light of this. After all, that’s 63 unfortunate tragedies – good people who only wanted to improve their health.
During that same period (’89-’98) those who attempted to improve their health with pharmaceuticals fared quite a bit worse, however. The average number of pharmaceutical related deaths was approximately 227,000 per year. That places deaths associated with pharmaceuticals as the third leading cause of death in the U.S. – right behind heart disease and cancer.
But of course, while the supplement industry is large, the pharmaceutical industry is truly gigantic. So naturally we would expect to see a higher rate of deaths. But 227,000 PER YEAR!?
Previously, when I offered a similar sort of comparison, someone pointed out that the numbers weren’t comparable because the pharmaceutical industry is easily 10 times larger than the supplement industry. So let’s imagine that the supplement industry is not just 10, but 20 times larger than it currently is. Then, if we extrapolate the numbers, we would get a death toll from supplements of 140 per year.
140 avoidable deaths per year is unacceptable. 7 avoidable deaths per year is unacceptable. 227,000 avoidable deaths per year is an epidemic out of control – no matter how you do the math.
To Your Good Health,
Jenny Thompson
Health Sciences Institute
Sources:
“Just Slightly More Than Six Deaths Per Year From Supplements Between 1989 and 1998” Wellness of Chicago Newsletter, wellnessofchicago.com
