Study finds medical mistakes are the 3rd leading cause of death

Medical mistakes are the 3^rd leading cause of death for Americans, claiming a quarter of a million lives a year, in accordance to study results released by researchers at Johns Hopkins University.

If fatalities resulting from errors and safety lapses in medical care were counted as deaths, as are deaths from disease and injury, they would account for more fatalities than respiratory disease, and trail only heart disease and cancer as a cause of death, argues researchers in the report, published in the British Medical Journal.

To better track, research and neglect medical mistakes in the future, the authors of the BMJ study call for a space on death certificates where doctors can indicate that a medical error contributed to the death.