Medical Error Is Not The ‘Third Leading’ Cause Of Deaths

The problematic science behind a commonly-quoted statistic

Pictured: Probably actors. Photo: National Cancer Institute / Unsplash

There’s an incredibly common claim splashed around whenever we talk about the mistakes that get made in medicine — that medical error is the third leading cause of death in the United States. It is so ubiquitous that you can find it quoted in TV dramas, thrown around in news stories, and constantly referred to on Twitter every time anyone wants to make a point about how bad the healthcare system is.

And it’s quite a persuasive argument for several reasons. Everyone agrees that the medical establishment sometimes harms people — indeed, there are countless horrifying tales of doctors causing harm, especially to women, and particularly disadvantaged women. Moreover, almost everyone you speak to with a chronic health condition will be able to tell you at least one story about how a doctor, nurse, or other clinician did something that may have harmed their health.

Taking that into account, it sounds entirely reasonable that medical error might…