Earlier I wrote a blog post about how "medical practice is full of unscientific beliefs", where I noted that even though we tend to think of modern medicine as being this extremely strictly tested and controlled endeavor, a surprising amount of it is based on nothing but customs and beliefs rather than actual meticulous medical testing (and how there's example after example of medical practice that was popular for decades and decades being changed and obsoleted as further actual studies have shown them to be ineffective or even detrimental.)
In a lot of cases it's hard to pin-point the exact source of this belief-based medicine (although enough digging through medical material would probably end up uncovering the original source of the myth).
However, sometimes there's a very clear culprit, especially if we widen the subject to not just strict medical practice engaged by doctors, but to a wider notion of health practice engaged by authorities and the society as a whole: And that culprit is the private industry trying to sell something.
Do you know why for decades and decades, to a somewhat large extent to this day, bacon was a staple in breakfast meals in the United States in particular? You guessed it: The notion was lobbied by megacorporations trying to increase bacon sales.
You have almost certainly heard of the origin of the infamous "food pyramid" that has wheat-products (such as bread) on the bottom, ie. supposedly the thing you should eat the most, which is an absolutely horrendous diet and one of the primary, if not the primary, cause of the morbid obesity epidemic in the United States and some other countries. That's right: This horrible "food pyramid" was not the result of medical research. Instead, it was lobbied by megacorporations to increase the sales of wheat products.
(The scary thing is that this "food pyramid" became so pervasive and so widespread that it essentially became Gospel, the Holy Word of God. There are countless stories of not just house moms, but also primary and secondary school teachers not only teaching its importance to students, but imposing it as if eating otherwise was almost a death sentence. Many people, including many teachers, had literally zero skepticism and just believed the utter importance of the mythical "food pyramid" wholesale. For many decades it was absolutely horrible, and certainly caused the morbid obesity epidemic.)
At some point health authorities and medical practitioners started to swallow the myth about the utter importance of weaning off babies from breastfeeding at a particular age, and replacing the milk with artificial products (ie. so-called "baby formula"). While criticism of this practice has existed for as long as the practice itself, it has only been during the last decade or two that the health authorities and medical communities of most countries have started accepting that not only is it not that important after all, but in fact doing it too early can be detrimental. The detrimental nutritional deficiency caused by "baby formula" has also been more and more closely studied and divulged.
Just like with the infamous food pyramid, also this belief spread like wildfire and was taken way, way too seriously in some parts of the world, with people literally believing that it was outright dangerous if the baby wasn't weaned off of breastfeeding soon enough. Not that anybody could give any evidence of, or even specify what the "danger" was.
And, you guessed it: This entire notion was lobbied by corporations trying to sell more baby formula (in this case the Nestle company being the most prominent culprit.)
It's actually scary how much corporations can influence society. However, I don't blame the companies. I blame the doctors and health officials who haven't done any medical studies about it nor put a stop to it before it was too late. They are the actual people to blame.
One has to wonder: How much of current "health" facts and medical practice is still, to this day, pure fabrication by some megacorporations, that has still not been actually studied and debunked?
There's probably a scary amount. But I know of at least one: Dietary supplements (such as vitamin pills, etc). This is a multi-billion-dollar industry that's bigger than ever, and ever-growing, and it's all complete bullshit. And it was, of course, pushed by giant megacorporations. The scary thing is that the vast, vast majority of people have swallowed the entire narrative wholesale, most of them refusing to believe that it's all just bullshit, a waste of money and, possibly, even actually detrimental to one's health.
There is already some initial pushback against this industry, but not even nearly enough yet. Nor is there even nearly enough public education about it either, and most people still think that dietary supplements are good and necessary for you.
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