Western Medicine is "Civilized"

When we talk about other countries or cultures we often look down on them as being inferior compared to ours. One of the reasons for this is because of the use of traditional medicine in these cultures. Americans are so used to our westernized “logical” medicine that when we are presented with a method that is unfamiliar, we immediately denounce it as “false” or “magic”. Modern medicine is seen as civilized, so we don’t question any faults with this system.  However, there are in fact quite a few problems with it. One of the most commonly talked about issues is overprescribing. 46% of Americans over 65 in 2019 were taking 5 or more medications. Taking this many medications causes a sharp increase in adverse side effects. Over the next decade these side effects are expected to hospitalize 4.6 million older Americans. People tend to just want a quick fix to their problems rather than making a long term lifestyle change to combat it, because it takes a lot less energy. Drug companies, however, benefit from this problem because it makes them a lot more money, which they obviously care about more than the people’s health. Also, medication commercials usually only feature good things about the product and have an extremely fast reading of all the harmful side effects at the end. This is a common joke but it actually contributes to this problem. Another problem is the insane cost of many drugs people need to survive. These include epipens, insulin, and cancer medications. Companies claim the soaring prices are due to new “innovative research” being conducted but this is often false. These issues and more show that western medicine is perhaps more logical, but it has its faults as well. We should question what we accept to be the only truth and try to see things from multiple perspectives.