Why Medicine Won’t Cure You—and How That’s Finally Changing
The predatory business model that requires lifelong patients faces its first federal challenge with Kennedy’s historic SSRI initiative
Story at a Glance:
•No industry, organization, or cause tasked with solving a problem will actually solve it, because the problem disappearing threatens their economic livelihood or political power.
•The pharmaceutical industry has perfected this model: drugs are designed to be taken perpetually rather than cure, side effects create demand for additional drugs, and the entire regulatory apparatus is structured to suppress affordable natural therapies that challenge it.
•SSRIs epitomize this dynamic—massively overprescribed, frequently life-ruining, and nearly impossible to withdraw from—yet for decades, the industry successfully kept all criticism of them out of mainstream discourse.
•Kennedy announced a multiagency federal effort to combat inappropriate SSRI prescribing, train providers in how to correctly taper patients off antidepressants, and provide non-pharmaceutical alternatives.
•This marks the first time in memory a federal health initiative has aimed to help get patients off a major drug class rather than on one.
When I was in high school, I observed a few discouraging events which led me to postulate: “no industry, organization or cause tasked with solving a problem will actually solve it because the problem disappearing threatens their economic livelihood or political power.” Since that time, I have observed more examples than I can count in so many different spheres that I’ve accepted this dynamic is a common feature of society, and likewise, have come across many similar observations by others, my favorite of which was:
Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program—Milton Friedman
Recently a noteworthy exampls of this principle came to my attention after I learned all of the online dating apps had switched from formats which allowed people to find suitable long term partners to ones which prevented people from matching, because if someone found a good match, they would stop paying for the service. Once one company figured this out, they bought out all competitors and shifted them to this predatory model as well (and all the profound consequences it entails).1,2,3,4,5,6
Note: because online dating has now become so bad, the companies that monopolized the market are starting to lose a lot of users and money, signaling there may be a chance for this cycle to reset itself.1
This article will focus on how that principle applies to medicine and why I believe beyond greed, complacency also plays a central role in the continual recurrence of this dynamic across societies.
Is Money The Root Of All Evil?
The love of money has long been recognized as one of the most powerful forces for twisting human hearts towards evil. However, I would argue the core issue is that for many people effectively, accumulating money becomes the foundational axiom used to navigate life, causing them to rationalize a variety of unethical positions because their internal algorithm will frequently default to the choice that acquires more money. Recognizing this provides an invaluable tool for understanding the world, as the motivations of others often become far clearer once you view things strictly through what and how they stand to profit from their actions.
Algorithms of Business
- Continual growth
- High markups on their product
- The widest possible market
- Market exclusivity (to protect and maximize sales)
- Repeating sales far into the future
The pharmaceutical industry excels in all of these, which helps to explain why they have managed to sustain steady growth for decades, and why one-fifth of all money spent in the United States goes to healthcare despite our country receiving very poor returns on that investment.
Note: annual adult vaccines (which frequently do nothing, particularly because they are often for the wrong strain) are an excellent example of an unsafe, unproven and ineffective product that is pushed on everyone because it fulfills the need for perpetually recurring sales.
Lifelong Patients
A frequently shared meme highlights that members of the medical community frequently face the same dilemma dating companies do.
The more time I’ve spent in medicine, the more I’ve come to appreciate that many principles you see in business are not only replicated in medicine but inevitably will guide medical practice. The entire industry (and regulatory apparatus) is structured around this status quo, so anytime someone tries to deviate from it, countless stakeholders will emerge to oppose it.
This was best demonstrated by a 2018 report which provoked considerable public outrage when it was publicized by the mainstream media:
Note: while I can’t prove this, given how rarely the media will expose pharmaceutical misconduct, I believe the reason it did in this specific case was not to help the public but rather to send a message to the industry (and investors) to avoid curative genomic therapies.
All of this helps explain why the medical industry (and regulators) will only target competing therapies with the potential to meaningfully compete with their bottom line (e.g., we all saw what happened to the off-patent COVID-19 treatments like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin).
Sadly, many even more consequential examples. For example:
•Ultraviolet blood irradiation cured a wide range of otherwise fatal bacterial and viral infections (and many autoimmune disorders), but as it was taking off across American’s hospitals, the American Medical Association tried to buy it, and once they couldn’t, successfully buried it (except in areas like Russia outside their monopoly).
•Sleeping medications have a wide range of issues which cause serious issues for their users, so once an effective (but un-patentable) one which restored people’s sleep and health (frequently to a profound degree) came into use, the FDA launched a relentless campaign that eventually outlawed it (detailed here).
•Oxidative therapies, like chlorine dioxide, when dosed appropriately, have shown remarkable efficacy against a variety of infectious diseases, along with certain ones (e.g., ozone) also showing significant efficacy against a variety of musculoskeletal issues, organ diseases and circulatory disorders. Yet, despite thousand of studies corroborating their use, the FDA treats them as toxic agents with no redeeming value, and any attempts to research these therapies (particularly chlorine dioxide) are obstructed.
•DMSO is safe and essentially free substance that rapidly heals injuries, cures a wide range of common debilitating problems (e.g., all types of pain, spine issues, most skin issues, most eye issues, gastrointestinal inflammation and many autoimmune disorders) along with addressing many otherwise incurable issues (e.g., stroke damage, paralysis, chronic lung disease, and many different neurodegenerative disorders). Yet, despite the life-changing properties of this substance, the FDA fought the public for decades (including at multiple Congressional hearings) to bury it, and as a result, few people know it is anything but an inert solvent widely used in research and to deliver pharmaceuticals (and an interstitial cystitis treatment).
While many other candidates exist too (e.g., many promising cancer therapies were blacklisted by the AMA and FDA), I believe DMSO’s story is likely the clearest case of the FDA suppressing something to maintain the status quo of profitable diseases being incurable (and requiring perpetual lucrative medical care). This is because roughly 15,000 studies (I am gradually compiling) show its efficacy across a wide range of illnesses and I have now received over 7000 thousand testimonials from readers who had a lifelong debilitating issue rapidly resolve with DMSO that are nearly identical to those the FDA received as the public begged them not to ban it.
Medical Sales Funnels
One of the most common critiques of the pharmaceutical industry is that the entire enterprise is a more sophisticated form of the addictive drug model: the drugs that are widely sold are designed to hook people for life and the immense lobbying the industry can afford effectively takes the place of cartel violence to maintain their market monopoly. Furthermore, unlike classic drug enterprises which have to market their products from the shadows, the state sanctioning of their business model makes it possible for them to publicly market the products to the entire society and buy out both the media and government so criticisms of their products are not allowed to be aired.
Note: other common criticisms include several of the largest pharmaceutical companies (e.g., Bayer via IG Farben) having been deeply entwined with Nazi Germany, and that many major pharma firms were once leading marketers and manufacturers of cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin (Bayer famously marketed heroin as a “non-addictive” wonder drug1).
…
SSRI Antidepressants
From the start, I decided to focus on SSRIs as while they significantly help a subset of patients, I also feel they are one of the worst offenders on the market. Beyond being massively overprescribed, they frequently ruin people’s lives (often in very cruel ways), are often nearly impossible to withdraw from, and have predatory sales funnels that affect large numbers of American women:
Unfortunately, SSRIs languished in the same place many other toxic drugs did: they harmed a significant number of people but the drugs made enough money (one in six adults take psychiatric medications1) that it was possible for industry to corral the entire government and media into sweeping them under the rug.
To try to shift this, I decided to focus not on the common side effects, but rather the psychotic violence and mass shootings they occasionally cause. My theory was that since so much effort has gone into politicizing mass shootings and gun control, the right would be receptive to the fact SSRIs were triggering many of the shootings being blamed on inadequate gun control, and that this would spur interest into all the other far more common side effects SSRIs cause and make it finally an acceptable topic of discourse.
…
That panel concluded with Secretary Kennedy stating we need to do better, that withdrawing from SSRIs is significantly more difficult than withdrawing from heroin, and announcing that the Federal Government would begin combatting this. …
Since that May 4, 2026 announcement,1 the multiagency effort has continued to advance rather than stall. HHS agencies issued the planned “Dear Colleague” letter emphasizing informed consent and non-drug options, CMS clarified reimbursement so clinicians can be paid for time spent helping patients taper, and SAMHSA began educational webinars and training modules on psychiatric medication risks, deprescribing, and alternatives. In early July a Technical Expert Panel of clinicians, patients, and professional societies met to shape formal clinical guidance on safe tapering of SSRIs and related drugs1—the first such federal process focused on getting people off a major drug class rather than onto one.
Most remarkably, the profession is responding to these attempts. …
Most remarkably, the profession is responding and deprescribing has moved into formal sessions at major psychiatry meetings. Shortly after RFK’s announcement, at the American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology’s 2026 annual meeting, members of the society’s own Deprescribing Task Force held a detailed panel discussion on when and how clinicians should taper patients off psychiatric medications and on the importance of non-drug alternatives such as psychotherapy, lifestyle changes, and collaborative care rather than leaving patients on medication indefinitely:
Note: SSRIs are not the only psychiatric medication with major issues (e.g., there are many serious issues with benzodiazepines which are used for anxiety, insomnia and SSRI side effects).
Institutional Inertia
Most societies and institutions follow a similar trajectory: initially, they have to be as innovative and dedicated as possible to establish themselves. Once established, their focus shifts to maintaining their position rather than advancing their original mission (e.g., empires throughout history typically last seven generations because they all succumb to this cycle).
This shift commonly translates to the goal moving from solving the issue to providing an “indispensable service” by perpetually managing rather than fixing it. I’ve never forgotten one clip from a documentary29 about soldiers injured by the (completely unnecessary) experimental anthrax vaccine, which much like the COVID vaccine, ended the careers of many promising soldiers despite widespread resistance against the shots.
Conclusion
While financial incentives are the most obvious driver for institutions to abandon their original mission, I (and many others throughout history) have come to believe that plain human complacency and the widespread aversion to change play an equally central (and perhaps even larger) role. Most people would simply rather master a comfortable routine and get paid for it than face the constant uncertainty required to actually solve difficult problems.
When I was much younger, I saw many instances of wealthy people being far less happy than their less fortunate peers and realized that money without purpose was often spiritual poison. I concluded that my purpose would be to learn as much about life as I could, and along that journey, find ways to help others. I gravitated towards medicine because very few things are as complex as the human body (or as meaningful when you can finally figure something out and help heal someone). I was quite shocked to discover not only that inquisitive medical students were the minority, but that the entire educational process was structured to gradually remove that mindset from trainees.
Author’s note: This is an abridged version of a longer article that goes into greater detail about the above points and the therapies the FDA suppressed to support the medical industry. That article and its additional references can be read here. Additionally, a companion article on the dangers of antidepressants and the natural treatments for depression can be read here, while another on the dangers of benzodiazepines and the natural treatments for anxiety can be read here.
from: https://www.midwesterndoctor.com/p/why-medicine-wont-cure-youand-how?publication_id=748806&post_id=211111514&isFreemail=true&r=19iztd&triedRedirect=true&utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
