Hospitals are supposed to be places to go to get medical help when we're sick. However, a recent investigative report in the Chicago Tribune revealed that, in the year 2000 alone, some 103,000 deaths were linked to infections acquired in hospital themselves -- making them one of the most dangerous places we can go.

Although the government has never denied the extent of the problem, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had calculated that 90,000 people died in 2000 because of infections they acquired while in the hospital -- 14% far below the number arrived at by the Tribune researchers.

So widespread is the problem that hospital-acquired infection is ranked as the fourth leading cause of death in the United States behind heart disease, cancer and strokes.

According to Michael J. Berens, Tribune staff reporter, "A hidden epidemic of life-threatening infections is contaminating America's hospitals, needlessly killing tens of thousands of patients each year."  

The article also quoted Dr. Barry Farr, a leading infection-control expert and president of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America. "The number of people needlessly killed by hospital infections is unbelievable, but the public doesn't know anything about it," he said. "For years, we've just been quietly bundling the bodies of patients off to the morgue while infection rates get higher and higher."

As an example of the problem, the report highlighted a 1998 case in Chicago, where several workers tended without washing their hands -- even though they were ill. As a result, eight children died of infection. "The flulike outbreak, which the city of Chicago never revealed to the public, was halted weeks later after three dozen sick health-care workers were ordered to stay home," the report revealed.

The Tribune conducted extensive research for the report, analyzing records gathered among 75 federal and state agencies, as well as internal hospital files, patient databases and court cases around the nation. The result is the first comprehensive analysis of preventable patient deaths linked to infections within 5,810 hospitals nationally, it noted.

Among the other findings was that serious violations of infection-control standards occurred in the vast majority of hospitals nationally. "Since 1995, more than 75% of all hospitals have been cited for significant cleanliness and sanitation violations," the paper reported.

"Can you imagine the medical community outcry if even a single doctor died from germs because of a failure to wash hands?," asked Mark Bruley, a forensic investigator who studies hospital conditions for ECRI, a non-profit laboratory near Philadelphia. "Health-care workers aren't the ones getting hurt. Because they don't always see the outcome, they are blind to problems."

SOURCE: "Infection epidemic carves deadly path; Poor hygiene, overwhelmed workers contribute to thousands of deaths," by Michael J. Berens, Chicago Tribune, Jul 21, 2002.

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The 17^th principle of chiropractic states that every effect has a cause and every cause, an effect. Pretty obvious, you might say. One cannot exist without the other, but when it comes to our health we seem to too often forget this basic principle and assume that health is a matter of good luck. We overlook or don't understand the causal linkage between events so we assume they are totally separate and distinct from each other.

When we or our loved ones have an accident or suffer a trauma, how often does our criteria for whether we need to do anything about it sound like this: "Is it broken or bleeding?" If it isn’t we assume we have got through the episode unscathed and proceed on with life. Is this the most wise approach?

A piece of research published recently showed that people who suffer a whiplash injury have more health problems later on through life. The paper, published in the Journal of Clinical Epidemiology, Vol. 54, (2001), pg. 851-856, was entitled, “The association between exposure to a rear-end collision and future health complaints.” It was produced by Anita Berglund, Lars Alfredsson, Irene Jensen, David Cassidy and Ake Nygren.

The researchers wanted to better understand the association between spinal injury and a person’s health. They investigated 232-people in rear-end collisions who had whiplash and 204-in rear-end collisions who didn’t report whiplash 7-years later. The people who suffered whiplash had more headaches, thoracic pain and low back pain. They also suffered more fatigue, sleep disturbances and ill health of all kinds.

As the researchers were looking from a medical viewpoint, they didn’t follow a third group who had sustained whiplash and had their subluxations corrected on an ongoing basis over the study period. It's a great pity.

The subluxation complex is a relentless and progressive process that may take many years to result in symptoms. It is often the events that we encounter in our early life that compound and progress until one day we “come down with something” or “catch” something infectious, or we are unlucky enough to “have” or “get” a serious disease and never make the connection to the cause. Every effect has a cause. Every cause has an effect.

So much for a little "kink in the neck."

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