Why Was the Study Finding 250,000 USA Medical Deaths Published in a British Journal?

The astonishing headline last month that medical errors are the 3rd most significant cause of death in the USA - at an estimated 251,000 per year - led to massive media coverage. I wrote about it for my typically integrative health and medicine oriented readers in In Defense of "Alternative Medicine". Interest is high. Audiences seem to be ready to try and digest what these horrible data mean. Yet the storm of reporting and commentary obscured a fascinating side-question. Why were these data about the medical industry in the United States of America published abroad, in the British Medical Journal? The question bugged me. So I went to the article to find information on how to connect with the paper's corresponding author, Martin "Marty" Makary, MD, MPH. Makary is a surgical director at the esteemed Johns Hopkins Multidisciplinary Pancreatitis Center. He's got his own Wikipedia page. I sent him a query. Why BMJ instead of JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) or NEJM (New England Journal of Medicine) or Health Affairs? I got no response the first query. I waited 3 or 4 days and wrote back, reminding him of my initial query, and that I remained interested. Makary is a writer of columns in the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere. He is the best-selling author of 3 books, including Unaccountable: What Hospitals Won't Tell You and How Transparency Can Revolutionize Health Care. He's a busy guy. He then responded with a one-liner - below - such as one writes wh...
Source: Healthy Living - The Huffington Post - Category: Consumer Health News Source Type: news