It's a very cynical argument, I'll give you that, and I'm certainly biased by wasting a bunch of time & money on x-rays and drugs and acupuncture. A slight more realistic explanation may involve liability - twisting and stretching someone who complains of back pain may be hard to teach / accredit at scale in a way that doesn't sometimes end disastrously, and MDs prescribing meds eliminates those cases of extreme liability.
Not sure about Malaria or stomach ulcers, but likely because those who developed the drugs were not acting to maximize their economic interests? Malaria seems like a relatively well understood parasite, whereas "back pain" could really be a symptom of nobody-really-knows-what.
Not sure about Malaria or stomach ulcers, but likely because those who developed the drugs were not acting to maximize their economic interests? Malaria seems like a relatively well understood parasite, whereas "back pain" could really be a symptom of nobody-really-knows-what.