Data: Hospital Infections Linked to 48,000 Deaths (2006)

The Los Angeles Times "Booster Shots" blog reported that research "published in Monday's edition of Archives of Internal Medicine estimates that 48,000 people died in 2006 after developing sepsis or pneumonia during their hospital stays." AFP reports that "the two hospital-acquired infections...account for about one-third of the 1.7 million infections US patients pick up every year while in hospital, the study...shows." Furthermore, "they are...responsible for nearly half of the 99,000 deaths a year from hospital-acquired infections reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)." These are numbers that should be front and center in the malpractice debate, not "tort reform."