The following quickly buried 1998 JAMA report would seem to indicate that FATAL Adverse Drug Reactions (ADRs) to FDA-approved medications are far more common than this article implies.

Conclusion from the Meta-Analysis:

“Perhaps, our most surprising result was the large number of fatal ADRs [adverse drug reactions - from properly prescribed and administered FDA-approved medication]. We estimated that in 1994 in the United States 106000 (95% CI, 76000-137000) hospital patients died from an ADR. Thus, we deduced that ADRs may rank from the fourth to sixth leading cause of death. Even if the lower confidence limit of 76000 fatalities was used to be conservative, we estimated that ADRs could still constitute the sixth leading cause of death in the United States, after heart disease (743460), cancer (529904), stroke (150108), pulmonary disease (101077), and accidents (90523); this would rank ADRs ahead of pneumonia (75719) and diabetes (53894).18 Moreover, when we used the mean value of 106000 fatalities, we estimated that ADRs could rank fourth, after heart disease, cancer, and stroke as a leading cause of death..."

JAMA - Incidence of Adverse Drug Reactions in Hospitalized Patients - A Meta-analysis of Prospective Studies. Jason Lazarou, MSc; Bruce H. Pomeranz, MD, PhD; Paul N. Corey, PhD; JAMA.1998; 279:1200-1205

Keep in mind this study did not include cases where medications were mis-prescribed or mis-administered; nor did this study consider/include fatal adverse drug reactions (ADRs) caused outside of the hospital (at home, for instance).

Even the FDA admitted that Vioxx all by itself killed close to 30,000 in just a few years:

Estimates Vioxx Caused 27,785 Deaths

There is a Pulitzer waiting for the hungry reporter willing to "dig" for the real "scoop."

I bet more people have died from Tylenol overdose by destroying their livers than have died from all illicit drugs. But Schaeffer was only talking about psychoactive drugs.