There is an estimated 6.7 million emergency hospitalizations every year in the US. One out of every 67 of these hospitalizations is due to an adverse drug event. This is just one of the many interesting, although somewhat questionable points made by Daniel S. Budnitz and colleagues NEJM article titled “ Emergency Hospitalizations for Adverse Drug Events in Older Americans ”. It's a compelling article that, in part, attempts to persuade the reader that most emergency hospitalizations for adverse drug events in older adults are not the result of physicians prescribing inappropriate medications like those listed in the Beers criteria . Rather, the vast majority of hospitalizations are the result of a few commonly used medications, like warfarin, aspirin, plavix, and insulin. This would be an interesting finding, if it were true. Unfortunately, after reading this article I'm not sure it is. Let's start with the primary outcomes that the authors looked at - "hos