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As many as 28% of hospitalized patients requiring mechanical ventilators to help them breathe (for more than 48 hours) will develop ventilator-associated pneumonia. Current therapy involves intravenous antibiotics, but new antibiotics that can be inhaled (and more directly treat the infection) are being developed.
In 2010, opiate painkllers, such as morphine, OxyContin®, and Vicodin®, were tied to almost 60% of drug overdose deaths.
More than 30% of American adults, and about 12% of children utilize health care approaches that were developed outside of conventional medicine.
Most childhood vaccines are 90–99% effective in preventing disease. Side effects are rarely serious.
Approximately 500,000 babies are born each year in the United States to teenage mothers.