Limits - Intertwingled: Information Changes Everything - page 106

Figure 5-6. A fuzzy moral circle.
Concurrently, we are beneficiaries of and contributors to the wonders of civilization. Backpack-
ing in the wilderness offers a hint of what Thomas Hobbes called the state of nature: “continual
fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and
short.” cxxxviii After a few days on Isle Royale, I was ready to kill for a hot shower and a flush toi-
let. It's easy to embrace all good or all bad, but we co-exist in the messy middle. We can't be per-
fect, but we can do better. While it's impractical to uphold the oath of Hippocrates to do no
harm, it's certainly possible to do less harm. In no category of society is this more true than in
medicine.
Iatrogenics is the third leading cause of death in the United States. Side effects, drug interac-
tions, hospital infections, negligence, and surgical errors result in more than 225,000 deaths per
year. The number of people who suffer each year from non-fatal, physician-induced illness runs
into the millions. In Hippocrates Shadow, Dr. David Newman offers a powerful indictment of
medical practice. Doctors routinely prescribe antibiotics for viral infections. This causes twenty-
four thousand allergic reactions each year, not to mention several hundred thousand cases of
diarrhea. cxxxix This is the tip of the iceberg. The scope and scale of iatrogenics is terrifying.