I think helping is inherent to medicine. However, modern pharmaceutical business is designed to make money.

OK FACT - I HAD a terminal disease. Modern medicine cured me and I'm now healthy, my only objection was the cost was over 100 grand.

world medicine I would say knowing humans is a bit of both.

I work in the medical field and I haven't seen anyone keep people sick for profit. There are enough really sick people in the world that it's not necessary. Even the opioid epidemic, I believe, is perpetuated by well meaning health care providers who want to treat people's pain. I'm not talking about "pill mills" where there isn't really a doctor-patient relationship--those are a different story. I think we're starting to swing too far in the direction of "opioids do more harm than good" and a lot of people are in pain because of it.

I think it's an "intention vs. competence" issue. Dunning/Kruger affects at all levels of achievement. It's easy to overlook what you don't know. Wide definitions for things like autism and cancer defy superficial pathology. We are on various thresholds of breakthroughs that it's easy to overestimate our abilities and employ them against billions of years of natural selection.

Treat symptoms but maintain illness to maximize profits.

I voted hurt, because of overprescribing and over diagnosing. Which go hand in hand.

As an example: Diabetes. They continue to reduce the qualifiers for type 2 diabetes. The lower the sugar numbers go for qualifying for it, the more people are put on meds and test strips. These are expensive.

I’m confused by the opiod crisis. It’s very difficult to be approved for my pain meds every month, and I’ve tons of proof I have serious issues. Maybe it’s in private insurance, as for us poor, we don’t get that many.

A chemical engineer I know who got a job at a pharmaceutical company was told during his orientation, "If you ever come to a fork in the road where you can make a cure or a treatment, you make the treatment." I have no reason to believe he was lying.

Setting aside the opiod epicdemic, and countless cancer and AIDS "treatments" that aren't actually cures, I believe a lot is actually designed to help.
I mean, I only did like 30 years of research, but I'm pretty sure my diabetic ass needs insulin to stay alive. Pretty sure.

I think our health care system is well intentioned, but just like everything else in this country, when profits are to be made, big business steps in and skews the playing field. Big pharma is looking to make customers, not cures and insurance companies are looking to maximize profits by denying any claims they can. Health care should not be a for-profit business. We need a one payer system --
Medicare for all.

It is intended to help but I believe we overdo it should have been a third choice of undecided. I think it helps some people and hurt some people depending on their Doctor and his ability

so many are on unnecessary meds... Most on adhd or add meds don't have the actual condition but the parents/teachers are too lazy to deal with busy kids... I knew a guy on an anti-depressant that had him afterwards on blood pressure meds and then thyroid meds... all listed side effects of the original med. With all the other meds available his doctor opposed trying something else. A quick lookup showed the doctor to be receiving kickbacks on all three meds.

While I believe medicine can do good.... there is too much about money in this nation.

I believe it started off as a means to help people. However, now that Big Pharma, the hospital corporations, and insurance companies are firmly in control of all healthcare in this country, more people are being harmed than helped. American medicine has allowed it's purpose to be corrupted.

I think the initial impulse is to heal, but the system is often manipulated by people more concerned with profit.

Allopathy by definition treats symptoms rather than causes, I guess.
but one gets symptoms from somewhere, right?
and one also chooses allopathy when the symptoms manifest.
so iow "Barnum was right," and American medicine was designed to help humans heal--for money.

I think it is mixed. There are doctors that truly want to do good for their patients. I believe for most it's all about the money. Certainly hospitols and pharmaceutical companies want you to stay sick.

As messed up as this sounds, at times I feel that it is used to hurt people. Take those flu shots for example. I’ve known the people who got them and it still didn’t do them one shred of any good than had they not got the shot.