> No, its because the west rejects the "wooo" and makes a pill out of the part that works.
No, the west makes a pill out of the part that's commercially profitable, which is a very different set of criteria than "works". Things like shelf life/stability, cost and availability, dose:response curves that are very predictable for the entire human population, etc.
What goes into pills has far more to do with what works for business than what works for people.
It's overly reductionist to assume that all herbal remedies are the result of 1, maybe 2 active ingredients. The incentive for making a pill is less about efficacy and more about patentability. I can't patent camphor, but I can patent a 3% menthol & 3% camphor ointment suspended in a gel base (Fast Freeze).
I don't think it's fair to say the west as a supposed monolith rejects "woo", especially given the popularity of pseudoscience re: vaccines, homeopathy, Reiki, acupuncture, cleanses, etc.
It sounds like you’re implying there is Western medicine and “pseudoscience”.
In other parts of the world they call this crap “white people medicine” and stick with the natural remedies. It just lacks a shiny seal of approval from the FDA/EU regulatory body, which makes it “pseudoscience”. We all know that science is totally incorruptible and always true though!
Why take a thing that’s been known for thousands of years to be perfectly safe, when you can take this thing invented in a lab and tested on mice for 10?
> George Washington woke up at 2 a.m. on Dec. 14, 1799, with a sore throat. After a series of medical procedures, including the draining of nearly 40 percent of his blood, he died that evening.
Old medicine and medical treatments were absolutely lethal compared to what we have in modern times.
We certainly improved, but in 1799 I think it was already the age of pseudoscientific medicine, where people thought they were superior to traditional herbalist, simply because they read some books. In other words, I don't think any traditional medicine man would have done that treatment.
(Apart from that, I surely go to a hospital if I am really sick, but for everything light, I rather find something else, than some drug, where I don't know if it is helping me, or the doctors pension fund)
Iatrogenic deaths are still incredibly high today. Modern medicine is the evolution of the doctors regarded highly enough to treat the president, not the people who filled their prescriptions in the woods.
Earth has been known to be flat, women and POC have been known to be inferior and homosexuality has been known to be a sin.
But thankfully, humanity moves on, and among other innovations, came up with such things as statistical methods and drug testing. But if you so desire, you're absolutely free to distrust modern western medicine — after all, a lot of prominent people do, for example, late Steve Jobs.
No, the west makes a pill out of the part that's commercially profitable, which is a very different set of criteria than "works". Things like shelf life/stability, cost and availability, dose:response curves that are very predictable for the entire human population, etc.
What goes into pills has far more to do with what works for business than what works for people.