In an article in iNews some British experts have called, among other things, for an enquiry into the overuse of prescription drugs:
Leading British health experts are calling for a Chilcot-style inquiry into why they say tens of thousands of people continue to die every year through the overprescription of drugs.
They argue that (my emphasis):
Overprescribing medications is now thought to be the third most common cause of death after heart disease and cancer, which kills around 125,000 and 150,000 people a year in the UK respectively.
There is no particular reason to assume this is a problem unique to the UK. But some experts are skeptical of the large and often reproduced numbers of deaths from medical errors.
Are the high estimates right? Is overuse of prescription drugs now a leading cause of death in advanced countries?