Aspirin?

[marcusmarcusrc]

So, my mom has gotten hold of the forwarding bug, and in return, I have taken to consulting snopes fairly frequently in the hopes of limiting the wrongness that is being forwarded around the internet. Recently, she forwarded a document which accused aspirin of being responsible for a very large number of deaths, mainly due to the very large number of aspirin consumed, with blood thinning being the mortality factor. My google-fu failed me: while I was able to come up with a large number of websites citing the deaths (including some accusing aspirin of 1918 Spanish Flu mortality), none of them were what I considered to be reputable sources, and in contrast, I was unable to find any reputable sources which discussed the aspirin mortality claim either pro-or-con.

(the aspirin-Reyes syndrome link seems more solid, as do the benefits of aspirin for several conditions)

Any of my medically-competent friends want to weigh in here?