From bone broth to benzine… and back.
Once upon a thyme (see what I did there?), humanity weathered colds with citrus fruits, soothed sleeplessness with lavender, and didn’t need a prescription to make a poultice. They grew medicinal plants at home, knew rosemary from poisonous rhubarb, and rarely met an ailment they couldn’t knock out with a steaming bowl of chicken soup or a stiff shot of whiskey. Then along came John D. Rockefeller, the oil tycoon who looked at your great-grandma’s herb garden and said, “That’s adorable. Let’s burn it all down and replace it with pills.”
Welcome to the golden age of Rockefeller Medicine, where most doctors couldn’t tell you what curcurmin is good for but can pronounce the name of 147 patented synthetic compounds, most of which come with side effects that sound like a medieval curse.
Step 1: Own the Oil
Rockefeller made his fortune refining oil. And what do you know? It turned out petrochemicals are fabulous for making pharmaceuticals. What greasy good fortune! Why would you expose yourself to sunshine or go for a brisk walk when you could pop a pill and feel… slightly less miserable? Sure, you’re likely ingesting highly toxic, known carcinogens typically found in tires and packing peanuts and petrochemical solvents used in anti-freeze and nail polish remover and surfactants found in industrial cleaners, but you don’t even have to break a sweat! (If you thought your antidepressant came from a rare flower kissed by the morning dew of the Swiss Alps, surprise! It’s more ExxonMobil than echinacea.)
Step 2: Erase the Competition
Natural medicine? Holistic healing? The stuff that actually worked for centuries without causing leakage? Too accessible. Too affordable. Too… unprofitable.
In 1910, Rockefeller and his posse (namely, the Carnegie Foundation and the American Medical Association) cleverly funded the Flexner Report, a landmark “study” that basically declared anything not based in scientific biomedicine was dangerous quackery. (Translation: herbs = bad; lab-synth petroleum goo = cha-ching!)
“Back in 1910, Abraham Flexner published a groundbreaking report that dramatically transformed medical education in the United States and Canada. This report led to the phasing out of various forms of natural medicine from medical schools, favoring patentable drugs subjected to scientific testing.
Before the Flexner Report, people often turned to a diverse range of treatments, including nutrition, herbal remedies, homeopathy, and electro-medicine. Flexner argued for a new direction, suggesting that scientific testing should underpin medical treatments, shifting away from what he considered outdated and unscientific methods.”—The Flexner Report and the Rise of Big Pharma
As a result, medical schools whisked traditional healing off the table faster than a suspicious spoon in a train car full of European leaders. Herbalists, aromatherapists, midwives, homeopaths? Dismissed. Chiropractors and acupuncturists? Dubiously tolerated. Reiki and reflexology? Indulge, but don’t expect your insurance to cover it.
Step 3: Rebrand “Health” as “Symptom Management”
Did you think medicine was about getting to the root cause of illness?
LOL, you’re cute.
Rockefeller’s model has turned healthcare into a glorified pharmaceutical vending machine. Got a headache? Pop this pill. Anxiety? Swallow this medical-grade Skittle. Can’t sleep? Toss this tablet down the hatch. Can’t wake up? We got you, boo. Developed a twitch from the first intervention? Great news! We just developed a brand new engine-grade elixir just for twitching.
And thus began the holy trinity of modern medicine: Diagnose. Prescribe. Repeat.
(Side effects may include bankruptcy, chronic disillusionment, and a deep distrust of anyone wearing a white coat.)
Step 4: Control the Narrative
Big Pharma knew early on that whoever controls the ad space controls the narrative. So they greased the wheels of newspapers, medical journals, and later TV networks with enough advertising dollars to build a golden shrine to the Temple of Lifetime Treatment.
Today, when someone suggests turmeric for inflammation, they’re called a witch on Twitter. [*I know it’s X but Twitter was rhymier.] But when a pharmaceutical company synthesizes a molecule that mimics the herb and charges $399 per capsule, it’s called a “groundbreaking innovation.”
Step 5: Repeat for the Rest of Forever
We’ve reached the point where doctors roll their eyes at elderberry syrup but happily prescribe a statin that can cause memory loss and liver damage and extends the average patient’s lifespan by four whole days (not a typo). You get more side-eye for drinking kombucha than you do for having a mini CVS pharmacy in your medicine cabinet and downing your weight in petro-pellets on the daily. But good thing we outlawed nature before it cut into Big Pharma profits too much. Eyeroll.
Step 6: Wake the BLEEP Up [*optional]
Take MAHA: Make America Healthy Again. And we were healthy. Three of my four grandparents lived well into their mid-nineties, yet both of my parents perished in their sixties.
Obesity, autism, cancer, anxiety, depression, autoimmune disease, asthma, infertility, and diabetes rates are off the charts. Children—who should be the most robust among us—are chronically sicker than at any time in history. Clearly, Western medicine is failing us.
As I see it, we’ve got two options: we can keep worshipping at the altar of Big Pharma and trading in real health for bottled promises… or we can start listening to the whispers of our late great-grandmas—the wise women who healed everything with a pinch of garlic, a dash of ginger, and a spoonful of something that smelled like feet but worked every time. We can trade side effects for side dishes, grow our own gardens, steep some leaves, touch some dirt, move some limbs, and bow humbly to that brilliant, life-giving Vitamin D orb in the sky. Because maybe—just maybe—the secret to wellness isn’t hiding in a capsule, but right in our backyards. [Bonus: Ancestral Medicine comes with no side effects, no co-pay, and zero chances of turning into a human lab rat.]
Jenna McCarthy is a speaker and the author of a few dozen books for adults and children. Her writing appears here monthly, in a column called “Here’s a thought…” Subscribe now to get the series in your inbox, along with the rest of IMA’s news and updates.
