this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2023
386 points (98.2% liked)
Asklemmy
43852 readers
701 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Medicine is any substance that has a demonstrable healthcare effect (demonstrated through double blind tests and not some rando's anecdote). That includes natural substances.
To put it another way, medicine and natural substances are not two mutually exclusive (i.e. disjoint) sets, as you and/or your doctor friend appear to be implying.
That’s not what I’m saying.
I agree a natural substance can be medicine.
His statement - not mine - is that it couldn’t be patented.
Therefore the profit is limited.
Therefore there are fewer studies than a comparable pharmaceutical.
Therefore when (not if) he is sued, he will be less able to defend himself.
Therefore he won’t prescribe it.
Thanks for clarifying. Although I don't agree with your doctor friend from an ethical standpoint, the point about natural products not being patentable is an interesting one and hadn't occurred to me before.