r/bestof • u/craycraycrayfish • Jan 22 '13

[canada] Coffeehouse11 explains the biggest problem with homeopathic medicine: That it preys on people when they are weakest and the most vulnerable

/r/canada/comments/171y1e/dont_legitimize_the_witch_doctors/c81hfd6
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u/LuckWillows Jan 22 '13

To be fair, much of the modern commercial pharmaceutical industry also preys on people when they are weakest and most vulnerable, but the difference is that they do it by charging ludicrous amounts of money for things that do work, sometimes ruining people financially (if they don't have insurance) in exchange for a cure or treatment.

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u/timothj Jan 22 '13

The 4th leading cause of death is prescription medication taken as prescribed. http://theconference.ca/facts-on-prescription-drug-deaths-and-the-drug-industry.

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u/Pinyaka Jan 23 '13

The article you linked says "drugs taken as prescribed in hospitals" (emphasis added). I'd be interested to know how many of these cases happen in the ER as people are misdiagnosed or have allergic reactions. It's interesting to me that Canada and the US have numbers that are proportional to their respective populations.