Take medication as a last resort, not a first choice.

Dr. Strand: Well, I have been in the practice for 31 years of my medical career and I think all physicians appreciate the inherent risks all drugs present to their patient. We are always weighing the risk of medication, or the risk of adverse drug reactions, to the health benefits they can obtain. So what really got my attention was an article written in The Journal of American Medical Association back in 1998, in which they showed that properly prescribed medication, prescribed and taken properly, is the fourth-leading cause of death in the country. Then, when you add the improperly prescribed medications to this that are not taken properly, that is another 80,000 deaths, making it the third-leading cause of death. Yet, no one in this country is talking about it. We don’t even keep statistics on it. Yet, all other researchers present the fact that over half of these deaths could be avoided if people just knew what to do. So I think that was the purpose and reason for writing the book. It's just to warn people that they don't need to take so much medication. If you really need to take medication, take it. But I have always had the philosophy: You should take medication as a last resort, not a first choice. Do not have blind faith in the FDA, the pharmaceutical industry, the doctor or the pharmacist. You need to take some personal responsibility to protect yourself and your loved ones from an adverse drug reaction.