The 90 deaths a day from medical errors in Italian hospitals “are fantasy numbers, an artifice without scientific foundation. It is a pure theoretical exercise on data extrapolated from sources read superficially and disseminated with great approximation". This was stated by Ignazio Marino (Ulivo), president of the Senate Hygiene and Health Commission who, after the dissemination of alarming figures on medical errors and deaths caused in Italy, asked the Italian Association of Medical Oncology (Aiom), which had illustrated the data at a conference in Milan, explanations and sources from which the data were taken. The results of this analytical work were presented yesterday at a press conference in the Senate. According to the Commission of Palazzo Madama, in the face of data without scientific foundation such as these, it is necessary “an accountability of scientific societies, which in order to be credible must communicate in a serious way; greater control and supervision by the professional Orders of doctors and also of journalists, and the creation of a database also available to those who provide information". We are therefore thinking of a "legislative provision - explains Marino - which facilitates the spontaneous reporting of errors in every department and management of a hospital, guaranteeing the confidentiality of this data, which cannot be used in civil and criminal proceedings". From Doctornews 10-31-06
