{{Isn't it obvious that if pharmaceuticals were truly effective, the "rubes" wouldn't be flocking to alternative medical practitioners in droves (at an increasing rate, by the way).}}

 

Actually, the opposite is what is happening. For example, the efficacy of blood transfusions has been apparent for a long time, but there are groups that will not allow any of their members to have one.

Another example right on this board is the insistence that vaccines are not only ineffective, but dangerous and the same applies to masks. No matter the science, there is a segment that would rather take advice from a snake oil salesman.

The Trump administration has developed this into an art form, by trying to protect Trump from the results of his disinformation about the severity of the pandemic, they have effectively cast the whole of the scientific community into disrepute, and now the 'rubes', as you call them, distrust the scientific medical community and rely on the quacks.

 

Lurker