Seven names flashed onto a television screen, recently allowing one commentator to put the accidental death of a noted actor in better perspective.

Heath Ledger, the promising young actor, died about two weeks ago of an accidental overdose of painkillers, sleeping pills, anti-anxiety medication and other prescription drugs. The New York City medical examiner determined the cause of death was “acute intoxication by the combined effects of oxycodone, hydrocodone, diazepam, temazepam, alprazolam and doxylamine.”

A statement from the 28-year-old victim’s father said: “While no medications were taken in excess, we learned today the combination of doctor-prescribed drugs proved lethal for our boy.”

Back to that TV screen. After presenting the names of the seven latest Americans killed by the war in Iraq, the analyst asked, “Are we so caught up in the celebrity of Heath Ledger what we constantly forget how we are losing so many people who are doing or at least trying to do the right thing? Why is Heath Ledger’s status, that of an entertainer, any more important than that of those people representing us in harm’s way?”

It is sad someone with the talents of a Heath Ledger has his life snuffed out at a young age. Yet why do so many people grieve and demonstrate so much about Ledger and so little about our armed forces casualties?

That fatality list included people who trained for their hazardous jobs, always aware of what it might cost them. The contributions of these armed forces is far more significant than those of Heath Ledger.

Yet, despite the attention to Ledger’s death, there may emerge an important message about the dangers of misusing or abusing prescription drugs.

According to an Associated Press story, oxycodone is a painkiller marketed as OxyContin and used in other painkillers such as Percodan and Percocet; hydrocodone is used in a number of painkillers, including Vicodin. Diazepam and alprazolam are the generic names for the anti-anxiety drugs Valium and Xanax, and the other two drugs are sleep aids commonly sold under the brands Restoril and Unisom.

These and compounds like them are not to be handled carelessly, frivolously or in a time of desperation. We can only hope that in this tragedy many, young and old, will take heed of the father’s comment: “Heath’s accidental death serves as a caution to the hidden dangers of combining prescription medication, even at low dosage.”

Heath Ledger’s death does not come close to the tragedy of any of those people killed or wounded in war, but perhaps out of it will come lessons in sane and sensible living that will help many among us.