Ask Lemmy

Any antivax parent will tell each other that pediatricians get bonuses for "pushing" vaccines. They do not and it's illegal to. So yes to your question, a good amount is believing doctors do things because of Big Pharma.

The drug reps we work with in my Canadian hospital clinic are really generous and ethical, do a lot of education, always bring us food, and put every penny of profit back into research of the disease they treat.

I don't think they are linked, but the financialization of the health care system has caused issues like the opioid crisis.

Significant enough to talk about

Desperation forces rational people to act irrational

If you can tell yourself you don't want something because you believe it's bad for you, when the real issue is you can't afford the treatment, it hurts less emotionally

Particularly if you happen to be in America where everyone is propagandised into thinking everything bad that happens to them is a personal failure

Thanks to the internet, conspiracies get wings, and now we have American-originated conspiracies making meaningful impact in Europe

Not really an answer, but just for context:

My family is from China and my mom is very skeptical of doctors and medications way before we cane to the US, so this isn't a US-Specific issue. I think its caused by bad experiences with doctors and/or the system overall, so the sentiment just spread by word of mouth.

My mom was very afraid that medicine would harm the fetus, so she told me that she did not like take any medications, like for example, painkillers or like flu medicine stuff, when she had me or my older brother. Also she said she breastfed us because she didn't trust baby formulas.

As for vaccinations, we did get them... I think its because its like government policy and everyone just accepted it. Maybe because viruses were scarier so parents just relented and accepted (in their view) the risks of side effects of vaccinations.

(Edit: Also, I'm pretty sure the US would never let us immigrate if we didn't have vaccinations, so that is a reason too)

But now, years later...

my problem is... I have depression and my mom is skeptical that I even have depression, and then simultaneously think I'm faking it and them also simultaneously thinks of me as having a disability like autism or something...

No mom wtf, (1) depression is not autism, (2) even if I did had autism, it doesn't mean you can just abandon me as if you never had me.

I had Lexapro for a short time before discontinuing, and because it went untreated, it got worse, so my mom is blaming the doctor for the, what she calls, a "misdiagnosis" (emphasis on the quotes, because I 100% know I'm depressed) and that its Lexapro's side effects that made me depressed.

And I'm a dependent and still young enough to be on their insurance (cutoff is like 26 I think), and the fear they instilled in me now make me second guess which psychatrist I can even trust, so now I'm like weeks into searching and still haven't made an appointment because of decision fatugue and so I procrastinated...

Political situation makes me wanna go outside even less... and also Covid made me Germophobic so I'm kinda scared to go outside...

so yea...

Edit: Also, while they did get the Covid Vaccine, but they didn't wanna go first, they waited like a few months until other people got it, because they are waiting to see if the, what they say as "lab rats" (the people who got vaccinated the earliest) have side effects, and if no bad news happens, then they'll get vaccinated.

But I had a cousin that had a negative reaction to the 2nd dose of Pfizer so my mom panicked lol. But they already got the 2nd dose by then. If they had not, then my mom said she was considering to like not get vaccinated because of that story abouty cousin.

Doubt it. Privatization's all about making money, and making people skeptical of big pharma means that big pharma gets less money. Think of how pissed off the people making money off tylenol must have been when it was "linked to autism"

I view medicial conspiracy more as a tool to gain political power. Create discourse by spreading bs, then rally the people who fell for it so you get more votes. Pretty common Russia tactic, iirc.

In my anecdotal experience, people tend to engage with conspiracies either out of entertainment or a need to project order on a chaotic environment. The former really isn't applicable to healthcare, but the latter very much is.

Simply accessing healthcare in the US is stressful and time consuming on top of the prohibitive cost. Additionally, receiving care can be painful, traumatic, and confusing. All of these negative emotions paired with low health literacy creates an environment ripe fabricating easy to comprehend theories about how healthcare works as a way to alleviate the confusion and thus bring comfort.

I think the current state of US healthcare, insofar as it creates the negative experience for patients, increases the attractiveness of conspiratorial ideas. However, my experience as a provider is that there is plenty of complexity and hardship surrounding providing care even if you remove all of the economic aspects. I've had patients who were fabulously wealthy with plenty of relevant education fall victim to fallacies because they are an attractive alternative to an uncomfortable truth.

What would you describe "medical conspiracism" as?

I think adherence to conspiracy theories usually is either someone who is insecure about their lack of education and ignored or rebuked in common social situations finding a sense of community and respect despite their hubris about their ignorance, and the other group are people trying to exploit people in the first group.

You’ve got people in the communist country of Canada with (mostly) universal healthcare who are into those conspiracies so I think it’s just human nature.