As one survey puts it, this prescription for disaster is beginning to manifest itself in headlines across the country and ever increasing reports of medical injury and death from prescription errors.

The Parata Prescription Safety 2008 study was conducted as a nationwide survey to measure consumer perceptions as to the accuracy and safety of prescription medications.

It is this reporter’s opinion that as the Iraq war grinds into its sixth year at a cost of approximately $340 million per year, we may better understand where we are, where we have been, and where we are going thanks to a book by four brilliant journalists.