Can Certain Medications Do More Harm Than Good?

A hospital is no place to be sick. -Samuel Goldwyn

While medicine has many lifesaving benefits, recent findings are revealing more and more that the cures may in fact be more dangerous than the diseases they were created to heal.

Every drug is to some degree a poison. Virtually any medication taken by the wrong patient, in the wrong dose, or at the wrong time has the ability to be harmful, if not fatal. The risk/benefit analysis of drug consumption-prescribed or otherwise-needs to be brought into focus for health and economic reasons.

Before you think that this view is alarmist in nature, consider the following facts about the use of one of the world's most common pain-related drugs, acetaminophen (available under the product name Tylenol, for example). Acetaminophen use is the number one reason for acute liver failure in the United States. It is also responsible for 8 to 10 percent of the end-stage renal disease in the U.S. These statistics are associated with one extremely common, widely-used drug that is considered so safe it is available without prescription to anyone with the money to pay for it. If the "non-dangerous" drugs yield consequences of this nature, what is happening with products that require the restrictions of a prescription to obtain them?.

"Care, not treatment, is the answer," says Dr. Joseph Mercola, (

) a Chicago-area osteopathic physician, in response to the health-care crisis. "Drugs, surgery, and hospitals are rarely the answer to chronic health problems. Facilitating the God-given healing capacity that all of us have is the key. Improving diet, exercise, and lifestyle are basic."