Even as jaded as I am on the biomedical industry, I must confess that I've never encountered the shocking figure offered below and, actually, would never have guessed at the true possible death toll levied on the American public by the pharmaceutical industry.

Via Epoch Times (emphasis added):

"Overtreatment with drugs kills many people, and the death rate is increasing. It is therefore strange that we have allowed this long-lasting drug pandemic to continue*, and even more so because most of the drug deaths are easily preventable.

In 2013, I estimated that our prescription drugs are the third leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer, and in 2015, that psychiatric drugs alone are also the third leading cause of death. However, in the United States, it is commonly stated that our drugs are 'only' the fourth leading cause of death. This estimate was derived from a 1998 meta-analysis of 39 U.S. studies where monitors recorded all adverse drug reactions that occurred while the patients were in hospital, or which were the reason for hospital admission."

*Acknowledging the apparently deep level Dr. Gøtzsche's understanding of the institutional rot in private industry and government, I will take this feigned ignorance of why the murder-by-pharmaceutical agenda has been allowed to continue unopposed as sarcasm.

Of particular interest to me, personally, was the devastation wrought by the class of drugs called benzodiazepines which includes U.S. brand names like Xanax, Valium, Ativan, Klonopin, etc.

American doctors (not doctors internationally, curiously) pass them out like candy for any kind of mental health disorder, along with SSRIs, yet fail to warn of the consequences of physical addiction and withdrawal, which are indescribably heinous and which I experienced firsthand.