How Much Blind Faith Does Medicine Deserve?

This is a blog I’ve wanted to write for a long time. My aim isn’t to say we should all run off to the local witch doctor — but maybe we need to stop seeing things in black and white. We look at all the good modern medicine has done and give it a blanket pass for everything else. But we can do both: praise what works, and expose what doesn’t, so the whole system serves us better.

Maybe We Should Be More Skeptical of Medicine

Modern medicine can be miraculous. If I break my leg or get hit by a car, I want the best-trained surgeon, clean tools, and a bright operating theatre ready to save me. No question about it — in an emergency, we owe our lives to good doctors and modern technology.

But somewhere along the line, we turned medicine into a kind of untouchable priesthood. We act like a white coat is a holy robe and a medical degree makes someone immune to bias, profit, or plain old human mistakes. History tells a different story — one that’s worth remembering every time we’re told to “just trust the science.”

A Short, Ugly History Lesson

Semmelweis and the Dirty Hands

In the 1840s, Hungarian doctor Ignaz Semmelweis figured out why so many women were dying of childbed fever: doctors were doing autopsies and then delivering babies without washing their hands. He begged his colleagues to disinfect. They laughed him out of the profession — literally. Semmelweis died in an asylum while the medical establishment clung to filthy habits for decades.

Bleeding, Leeches, and Mercury

For centuries, draining people’s blood was standard treatment for almost anything. George Washington probably died faster because his doctors bled him of nearly half his blood in a single day. Mercury and arsenic were routine prescriptions. Today we shake our heads, but at the time it was settled science.

“More Doctors Smoke Camels…”

In the 1930s through the 1950s, tobacco companies ran ads boasting that doctors preferred their cigarettes. Medical journals ran these ads. Doctors sometimes prescribed cigarettes for throat irritation. It took decades — and mountains of deaths — before the obvious truth won out.

Vioxx and the Regulator’s Blind Spot

In the early 2000s, Merck’s blockbuster painkiller Vioxx was marketed in Australia too — approved by our own TGA in 1999. It was pitched as a safer painkiller for arthritis and chronic pain. But Vioxx massively increased the risk of heart attacks and strokes. Internal memos showed Merck had data pointing to this risk early on. By the time Merck pulled it worldwide in 2004 — including in Australia — tens of thousands of people had suffered harm, and many here joined lawsuits that dragged on for years.

SSRIs and the “Chemical Imbalance” Theory

Billions are made every year selling antidepressants on the promise that depression is just a “chemical imbalance” — usually meaning not enough serotonin. But that theory has never been proven. Some studies say SSRIs help, especially for severe depression, but for mild to moderate cases the benefit can be marginal. And millions of people, here too, are now on them for life, facing withdrawals that some doctors still deny exist.

Doctors and the Nazis

One of the darkest facts most people never learn in school: German doctors were the professional group with the highest percentage of Nazi Party membership. They weren’t bystanders — they were planners and enforcers of forced sterilisation, eugenics, and horrific experiments. Just following orders, just following the “science” of the time.

Lobotomies: The Cutting Edge of Psychiatry

From the 1940s to the 1960s, lobotomies were cutting-edge psychiatric care. Tens of thousands were lobotomised — often without consent. Many were left disabled for life. The medical establishment praised the pioneers, gave them awards, and silenced critics until it became impossible to hide the damage.

Opioids: A Modern Example

Not ancient history — happening right now. Purdue Pharma made billions marketing OxyContin as safe and “non-addictive.” Doctors worldwide — Australia included — wrote prescriptions freely for years. While we didn’t see the same crisis scale as the US, opioid overuse, codeine misuse and dependency have harmed thousands of Australians too.

The Ongoing Cancer Conundrum — and the Non-Inferiority Shell Game

For over fifty years, wealthy countries like ours have poured trillions into the “fight against cancer.” We’re diagnosing more people than ever — and not just because people are living longer. Certain cancers, like colorectal cancer, are rising sharply in people under 50. In Australia, bowel cancer is the deadliest cancer for people aged 25 to 44, and diagnoses in younger people are climbing.

Survival rates? They’ve improved — but not nearly as much as you’d think, given the mountains of money spent. The five-year survival for all cancers has climbed from about 49% in the 1970s to around 68% today — mostly thanks to earlier detection and better supportive care. For tough cancers like pancreatic and brain, the odds are still grim.

And here’s a detail the glossy ads won’t mention: many new cancer drugs aren’t better than the old ones.

Drug companies can use what’s called a non-inferiority trial to get a new drug approved by showing it’s not worse than the existing standard — not better, just no worse within a certain margin. This might sound reasonable — sometimes it’s the only ethical way to test — but it’s also a great way to roll out endless “new” drugs that restart the patent clock and keep the cash flowing.

A JAMA Oncology study found that about one-third of new cancer drugs approved in the past decade showed no evidence they helped people live longer or feel better when they hit the market. Some do prove themselves later — but some don’t. Meanwhile, the new drug can cost $100,000 or more per year. And whether it’s Medicare, your private cover, or your wallet — someone’s paying.

So the “War on Cancer” keeps marching on, but the incentives don’t always point toward real breakthroughs. Prevention — tackling lifestyle, toxins, ultra-processed food, environmental factors — still gets a fraction of the funding. Treating the root cause doesn’t sell as many pills.

What Other Profession Could Get Away With This?

If any other industry had a track record like this — ignoring obvious evidence, harming people for profit, backing horrific regimes, doubling down on dogma — would we still hold it up as untouchable?

Imagine if your local mechanic insisted your brakes were fine while they squealed. Or if a pilot told you the wings were falling off but science says fly anyway. Or if a chef insisted raw chicken was perfectly safe because the textbook said so 50 years ago. You’d run, right? You’d get a second opinion. Maybe a third.

But for some reason, we park our skepticism at the clinic door. We still treat the white coat like it comes with divine authority.

The Big Questions We Should Keep Asking

Where else is the profession still blind? Where are we ignoring root causes because they aren’t profitable or don’t fit the cultural narrative?

• Why are fertility rates dropping globally — Australia included — while we brush it off as “lifestyle”?

• Why do autoimmune diseases keep rising when modern medicine mostly focuses on suppressing symptoms instead of asking what flipped the immune system in the first place?

• Why do so many metabolic diseases — obesity, type 2 diabetes, fatty liver — keep climbing while the standard advice hasn’t changed much in decades?

• Why do we rush to pills for mild depression and insomnia when sunlight, real food, movement, sleep, and stress management often work better — and cost nothing?

It’s not that these problems don’t have medical solutions — sometimes they do. It’s that too often the medical machine dismisses simple, powerful things like nutrition, light, movement, sleep, and meaningful connection as “alternative.”

If we truly want better outcomes — longer, healthier lives — we have to keep asking uncomfortable questions. We have to demand answers that go deeper than a prescription pad or the next expensive drug that works “about the same” as the last one.

Healthy Skepticism is a Lifesaving Habit

This isn’t anti-doctor. It’s pro-reality. Most good doctors want better answers too — they’re just stuck in a system that punishes curiosity and rewards compliance.

So ask your questions. Seek second opinions. Read the labels. Look upstream. Treat your own daily habits with the same seriousness you’d give a prescription. And never feel guilty for wanting proof instead of promises.

Because the history of medicine shows one thing clearly: the people who asked hard questions — and didn’t back down — were usually the ones who saved the most lives in the end.

Stay curious. Stay humble. Stay skeptical. And stay in the sunlight.