First it is a META-Analysis. Meaning it is a small sampling of other studies that are rolled into one. Below it even states they selected only 39 studies out of a possible 153. That means the authors only selected 25% of the studies they found, and they admit themselves (see conclusion) their findings should be viewed with caution.

http://www.ccjm.org/content/75/6/431.full

Above is a link to a paper by The Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine that states:

“A well-designed meta-analysis can provide valuable information for researchers, policy-makers, and clinicians. However, there are many critical caveats in performing and interpreting them, and thus many ways in which meta-analyses can yield misleading information.

Secondly, no offense meant, but the authors were Canadian Zoologists??? Not sure that lends an extreme amount of credibility to their findings. Not that they are not scientists, but it would have more credibility if they were clinicians that were more specialized in pharmacology or pharmaceutical studies etc.

I am NOT a fan of vaccines or flu shots. And I also believe the “medical industrial complex” is rife with fraud. However, based on the data provided, I also DO NOT believe adverse events from pharmaceutical drugs cause that many deaths a year. I will need much more definitive proof than this.

JAMA. 1998 Apr 15;279(15):1200-5.

Incidence of adverse drug reactions in hospitalized patients: a meta-analysis of prospective studies.

Lazarou J, Pomeranz BH, Corey PN.

SourceDepartment of Zoology, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To estimate the incidence of serious and fatal adverse drug reactions (ADR) in hospital patients.

DATA SOURCES: Four electronic databases were searched from 1966 to 1996.

STUDY SELECTION: Of 153, we selected 39 prospective studies from US hospitals.
DATA EXTRACTION: Data extracted independently by 2 investigators were analyzed by a random-effects model. To obtain the overall incidence of ADRs in hospitalized patients, we combined the incidence of ADRs occurring while in the hospital plus the incidence of ADRs causing admission to hospital. We excluded errors in drug administration, noncompliance, overdose, drug abuse, therapeutic failures, and possible ADRs. Serious ADRs were defined as those that required hospitalization, were permanently disabling, or resulted in death.
DATA SYNTHESIS: The overall incidence of serious ADRs was 6.7% (95% confidence interval [CI], 5.2%-8.2%) and of fatal ADRs was 0.32% (95% CI, 0.23%-0.41%) of hospitalized patients. We estimated that in 1994 overall 2216000 (1721000-2711000) hospitalized patients had serious ADRs and 106000 (76000-137000) had fatal ADRs, making these reactions between the fourth and sixth leading cause of death.
CONCLUSIONS: The incidence of serious and fatal ADRs in US hospitals was found to be extremely high. While our results must be viewed with circumspection because of heterogeneity among studies and small biases in the samples, these data nevertheless suggest that ADRs represent an important clinical issue.

Death from vitamins? really. perhaps you could document some of them. Other than intentional overdoses from suicidal victims I don’t believe more than a handful occur in the US annually. Very clever of you to lump vitamins in with drugs. Vitamins do not contribute in any significant statistical way to the over death toll in the US. To suggest otherwise is not just disingenuous it is untrue.

And surely not coincidently the big pharma gansters are trying mightly to get “vitamins” regulated and controlled right out of existence………as this article was written.