If you're going to question the source then at least question the actual journal articles instead of just ad homineming the guy citing them. They're all from respectable sources like JAMA.
A third of all Americans dying of medical malpractice is simply a fairly bold claim.
Again, no offense - please feel free to quote the JAMA article itself that supports this. Atkinson does a bit more than simply cite actual journal articles, he's taking, to put it lightly, some liberties with information he compiles and personally interprets at will.
"A third of all Americans dying of medical malpractice is simply a fairly bold claim."
Not really because because most people only die after 4 or 5 things go wrong, which means that the causes of death sum to way over 100. E.g. close to 1 in 3 Americans die from drug use, and 7 out of 10 Americans die from chronic illness. But the way it works is that first someone will start smoking (drug use), which then causes chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (chronic illness), and then they will go to the hospital get MRSA because the doctor didn't wash his hands (iatrogenic death).
In Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers there is a whole chapter on planes that is actually very similar, in that usually 4 or 5 small mistakes have to be made to actually cause a crash.
