Rex Trulove
Partly due to the agenda of the news media and their sometimes over-the-top coverage, people in the US and around the world are often led to believe that lots of people are killed with guns in America. Not only is this demonstrably untrue, it draws attention away from a huge number of preventable deaths. In an effort to set the record straight, I plan to write a few articles that contain the truth, rather than hype. We’ll start with the third leading cause of death in the US as of the time this is being written.
It should first be pointed out that shooting deaths in the US are actually rare. According to FBI statistics, about 33,000 people per year die of gunshot. Of those, the overwhelming majority are people who commit suicide, gang or drug-related, and people killed while perpetrating a crime, including crimes of violence, such as rape.
Even banning guns from the citizens in violation of the Second Amendment of the Constitution obviously won’t prevent these. That isn’t the topic here, though. What it comes down to is that unrelated to those already mentioned, several thousand people, in a nation of over 350 million, do die from idiots with guns. who are hell-bent on killing others.
How does this stack up against the number three cause of death, which is also preventable?
It can be mentioned that this has been the third leading cause of death for some time, so it isn’t new. It is third after heart disease and cancer, too. What is it? Medical errors. You read that right. Malpractice and misdiagnosis is the third leading cause of death in the US. How often do you hear the media talking about that?
The number of people who die from medical errors is also far larger than most people think, regardless of where in the world they live. In the US, between 400,000 and a half-million people die yearly from these errors. These are preventable deaths and the number is in the area of 100 plus times more common than those who die because some lunatic has a shoot-’em-up episode. It is rarely reported in the media because it doesn’t fit their agenda.
The cost to taxpayers for the medical errors is staggering, too. According to the government, as far back as 2012, death by malpractice and misdiagnosis was costing taxpayers around $1 trillion annually.
The sheer number of deaths that could be prevented is mind-boggling. That amounts to more than 1,000 deaths per day. More people die from medical errors in a week than all of the people killed by mentally ill people killing other people with guns in an entire year.
No matter which side of the gun control and bans debate you are on, be honest, did you know any of this? It suddenly becomes very difficult to understand why the media focuses on supposedly saving a few thousand people without any effort to bring attention to the preventable deaths of many hundred thousand people.
If you live outside of the US, you should remember that most of the information you get regarding the happenings in the US, of this sort, comes from the US media, either directly or indirectly.
Is it any wonder that the media is less trusted by the American public than politicians?
I read last week an account of a woman who took her son in the middle of the night to a referral hospital. Guess what? The child was poorly attended and the doctor in charge didn’t want to be disturbed. For 24 hours the child was attended until he died. So, uncaring attitude of doctors and nurses particularly from public hospitals does contribute.
I don’t always trust the media. They publish sensational news which they are sure will drive a huge traffic to their station. It’s all about money not conscience.
So common there is a name for it: Iatrogenic illness means illness caused by the doctor. In the opinion of Dr. Veronique Desaulniers among others, medical treatment in the US is the number ONE cause of death.
It is possible. The CDC ranks it behind cancer and heart disease. The sad thing is that some people with cancer or heart disease also die from the malpractice.
So true Rex, it’s like the total mess our communist government, ANC has allowed South Africa to collapse into financial ruin. A year ago, Standards and Poors have downgraded our country’s depleted capital reserve condition to “Junk status”. Now, a year later and the new president has passed an act that the state will own every square centimeter of the country’s land mass, by seizing, specifically white-owned land without compensation. CNN and BBC and all other mainstream media of the world have said nothing of this or the atrocious genocidal butchering of mainly white commercial farmers every day. The systematic torturing, rape, and murder daily, of white farmers and their families, often without stealing any valuables or money. This Canadian Journalist, Lauren Southern, visited South Africa to see for herself: https://youtu.be/a_bDc7FfItk
The worst part about it is that people actually often believe that what the media tells them is the truth and those people never make an effort to actually look at the facts. The media is in the business of deception, denying the atrocities are happening even when they are, and only showing things that support what they want people to believe. That is happening even in the US, with virtually every hot-button topic. The bias and hypocrisy are astounding.
For instance, a big topic a couple weeks ago was people who broke the law and flooded our southern border. Children were put into temporary foster homes and the media tried to say that it was all because of ‘evil’ President Trump. Not only did they ignore the fact that the procedure has been a law for over a decade, they tried to get a public outrage by showing a child in a cage. The picture was actually taken during the Obama presidency and had nothing at all to do with Trump. The media still ignores the terrible things the previous administration did, or they try to blame the current administration for things that the previous one did.
Having written a few articles recently about it, on other sites, I’m well aware of this terrible crisis. The shocking thing is that in spite of many authors writing about it, most cases don’t even reach the Television bylines. Thank you, Rex, a splendid post.
Most aren’t reported at all, even in newspapers on a back page. This is a really good proof that media often report on things that fit their agenda, even if they don’t honestly believe the agenda, and that they don’t really care about presenting the factual news. People are becoming increasingly aware of bias in the news, but they still aren’t up to speed on what the media isn’t reporting on. Many of those things they don’t report directly impact most citizens.
Everyone should read it as well..Yeah Carol Dm had read and nice amazing post
It is something people should definitely be made aware of, regardless of where they live.
My sister almost died from a surgery a few years ago, why? they did not feed her! I moved her out of that hospital to another, within a week of eating she was home.
Just last Saturday she had another complication from that same surgery, that almost killed her again.
She is home today after another doctor corrected it.
I pinned tho one so more people will know.
Although stories like yours aren’t often heard outside of a circle of family and friends, it happens way too often. When several hundred thousand people die year after year from negligence, there is a definite problem.
So glad to see this topic posted in a matter-of-fact well written manner. Thank you dozens of times over. The biggest problem with health care is how dangerous it is!
You’ve got that absolutely right. I know that mistakes will be made. That is inevitable. However, it happens far too frequently, many times more often than mass killings occur, yet nobody hears about it. It is a great example of what the media truly cares about, and it sure isn’t a care for saving lives.
Your post is a good wake-up call on all counts that needs to be discussed far and wide.
Wow that is a hard thing to read Rex. Everyone should read it as well. And you will not see this reported hardly anywhere. Thank you for bringing it to our attention. I had no idea. I knew it was a problem but not as big as this reports.
This is a huge problem that really should be discussed and really does need to be addressed. Unfortunately, it is being made un-important and political, in a perverse way, by both sides. It should be reported in the media by both political parties and it should be well-reported. Instead, gun control, pushed by a fringe element and said to be so vital for saving lives, is all that the media reports on. This shows clearly how biased the media is.
This also goes a long way toward showing why malpractice insurance costs so very much. That is a cost every single one of us pays for every time we go to the doctor, clinic, or hospital.
So much is left unreported instead we get the “news” that doesn’t matter. Geez is what I say. Report the news for goodness sakes,