These harmful effects, which can be serious and even lethal, are associated with every facet of modern medicine including drugs, other medical therapies, diagnostic procedures, and surgery. Fifteen per cent of hospital days are devoted to the treatment of drug side effects. Every medication, including those that are sold over the counter without a prescription, has an associated side effect. An Economic Drain Medication-caused disorders produce a substantial economic drain. This amount is nearly twice that spent on diabetes treatment and near the amount for cardiovascular disease 5 .
Iatrogenic disease can be due to many factors.
The hospital environment is especially conducive to medical hazards. Studies including those conducted at Harvard Medical School show that as many as 36 per cent of patients admitted to hospitals suffered iatrogenic injury with up to 25 per cent of those being serious or fatal. Up to half of these injuries were related to the use of medication 6 . The results of an analysis of cardiac arrests at a teaching hospital found that 64 per cent were preventable. Inappropriate use of drugs was the leading cause 7 .