www.lesswrong.com/posts/PhXENjdXiHhsWGfQo/lifestyle-interventions-to-increase-lo...

The linked 2013 Journal of Patient Safety paper estimated 210,000 deaths per year as a lower bound and more than 400,000 premature deaths per year as an upper estimate for preventable harm in hospitals. That is a very large number, but it still does not exceed the number of U.S. cancer deaths in 2013.

CDC cancer mortality data for 2013 report 584,881 cancer deaths in the United States, and CDC/NCHS mortality summaries list cancer as the second-leading cause of death in 2013. So even if one accepts the paper’s upper estimate, the ranking would still be behind both cardiovascular disease and cancer, not second after cardiovascular disease.

This correction is about the ranking claim, not about whether preventable medical harm is an important problem. The estimate cited in the post is simply not high enough to support calling it the second leading cause of death.

The post states flatly that statins have shown "no benefit" for people with no prior history of cardiovascular problems. That is incorrect.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force specifically recommends statins for primary prevention in certain adults without a history of CVD. Its 2022 recommendation says statin use has at least a moderate net benefit for adults ages 40–75 with one or more CVD risk factors and an elevated 10-year risk, and at least a small net benefit for some others at somewhat lower risk.

The same USPSTF evidence review reports pooled trial evidence that, in people without prior CVD, statin therapy was associated with reduced all-cause mortality, stroke, myocardial infarction, and composite cardiovascular outcomes.

So a narrower claim like "statins are not beneficial for everyone in primary prevention" could be defensible. But saying they have shown no benefit for anyone without a prior history of problems is contradicted by modern evidence and guideline reviews.

The sentence claims that the study showed a 3x mortality risk for people who chronically got less sleep. But the cited study was much narrower.

According to the PubMed abstract, the study examined "insomnia with objective short sleep duration". It defined insomnia as a complaint lasting at least 1 year, and short sleep as less than 6 hours in a sleep laboratory. Its key result was that men with insomnia who slept less than 6 hours had higher mortality than the comparison group. The authors explicitly concluded: "Insomnia with objective short sleep duration in men is associated with increased mortality." They also reported that in women, mortality was not associated with insomnia and short sleep duration.

That is not the same as saying that people who merely sleep less, in general, have a threefold mortality risk. In fact, a systematic review/meta-analysis found that short sleep duration was associated with a much smaller increase in all-cause mortality risk overall (RR 1.12).

So the post overgeneralizes a specific finding about a subgroup (men with chronic insomnia and objectively short sleep) into a broad claim about anyone who gets chronically less sleep.

The sentence says acetaminophen is included in painkillers by mandatory rule to prevent abuse. That is incorrect.

U.S. drug references document hydrocodone by itself as a medication prescribed to relieve severe pain, which directly contradicts the idea that acetaminophen must be included in opioid painkillers. MedlinePlus even has a standalone monograph for hydrocodone alone.

FDA materials on Zohydro ER likewise describe it as a single-entity hydrocodone product that can be taken without acetaminophen.

And when acetaminophen is used in combination products, official drug information describes it as part of the medication's pain-relieving effect. MedlinePlus states that in benzhydrocodone/acetaminophen, acetaminophen "works by changing the way the body senses pain." That is a therapeutic analgesic role, not evidence of a universal mandate requiring acetaminophen in painkillers.

So this sentence is incorrect on the specific factual point that acetaminophen is mandatorily included in painkillers to prevent abuse.