I totally agree that there are cases where the most expensive on patent treatment may not be the best for a given patient. That said there are tons of diseases for which new drugs are incredibly beneficial (think treatment of hep c and blindness), and the the development of new drugs is a net good for society.
Patients and doctors can still choose natural remedies if they believe they are the most effective treatment for a given illness.
> tons of diseases for which new drugs are incredibly beneficial.
These new drugs also often come with harmful effects that are not discovered until many people are harmed or killed. Big Pharma often discovers the harmful effects long before the public does and, in their pursuit of profit, denies any harm, lies, and covers up. See Merck and vioxx.
There are also tons of research on effective non-patentable treatments that are ignored in Big Pharma's blind pursuit of profit.
These "new" drugs are pushed as the best known treatment, while ignoring entire bodies of research.
That is my largest beef with Big Pharma and Big Allopathic Medicine. They ignore much science. Yes, ignore.
Now with Sci-Hub we can, as individuals, begin to see how much is being ignored. I've taken stacks of research papers into doctors in order to educate them on peer-reviewed and well supported science that Big Pharma convienently ignores and damn well doesn't educate them about. In their defense, they do understand the language of science and they were willing to change treatments in response.
Sure. I'm starting to work on a compilation. If you send me an email I can point you at it. I don't have them on me at the moment.
One time it was a 10 year old research paper detailing the simple fact that if you don't force a particular chemo drug into a person over the standard 30 minutes but instead do it over 2 hours you have a much reduced chance of permanent side-effects such as neuropathy. The doctors changed the treatment in response to the paper, and FWIW the person did not develop have any permanent side effects.
The fact that that paper exists and is 10 years old and had no change on the treatements of many people since then (many of which could have potentially avoided permanent damage) led me to further question the "scientific" nature of modern medicine.
Another rich vein of research is in the numerous research on the effects of certain medicinal mushrooms as an adjunct to cancer treatments, both radiation and chemo. In allmost all cases, the effects were very positive and replicable. Some of these papers are also over 10 years old.
Patients and doctors can still choose natural remedies if they believe they are the most effective treatment for a given illness.