Thread by @wideawake_media

A deep dive into how oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller discredited preventative natural medicine and replaced it with what became Big Pharma: a profit-driven system that indefinitely treats symptoms instead of addressing the root causes of disease.

THREAD 🧵

American healthcare in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was a diverse mix of remedies and practices, unlike the standardized pharmaceutical system we have today. In the event of illness, you could find “patent medicine” at a general store.

Patent medicine was an umbrella term for the unregulated concoctions that were made from plant-based substances, plus alcohol, morphine, opium, or cocaine.

Traveling salesmen, hauling suitcases or driving medicine wagons of tonics, peddled these concoctions from town to town and advertised them in magazines, newspapers, almanacs, calendars, and memo books.

Heroin cough drops, cocaine-laced toothache remedies, and alcohol-chloroform painkillers were sold without prescriptions or warnings, while Dr. Comfort’s Candy-Covered Cathartic Compound and similar products contained poisonous ingredients.

Ingredients remained a mystery, as labels weren’t required to disclose them. The 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act, which marked the beginning of Congress’s ban on dangerous ingredients, was a turning point in regulation.

Alongside these somewhat dangerous commercial cures were herbal medicine, homeopathy, midwifery, energy healing, and Indigenous methods, which were passed down through families. Many of these remedies were highly effective.

Medical training was basic: students attended eight hours of daily lectures for just two semesters, often at “diploma mills” that produced undertrained doctors. In an 1845 article, Dr. Nathan Smith Davis criticized how little training aspiring doctors needed.

The U.S. fell behind Europe even as germ theory and scientific methods were gaining popularity. The opening of Johns Hopkins Hospital in 1889, backed by substantial funding, began steering medicine toward a more science-based model and away from plant medicine.

Doctors, tired of rivals like “Indians, quacks, and housewives,” formed the AMA in 1847. Led by the ambitious young Dr. Nathan Smith Davis, who earned his medical degree at age 20, the AMA aimed to elevate standards amid an era of outdated practices like bloodletting, blistering, and mercury poisoning.

Their goals, though rooted in care, carried an undercurrent of professional gatekeeping. That year, the AMA appointed a Committee on Medical Education, published its Code of Medical Ethics, and set initial minimum standards for training.

By 1848, it warned of the perils of “secret remedies” and patent medicines. In 1849, a board was established to scrutinize patent medicines and quack remedies and educate the public on their dangers. These steps laid the groundwork for reform, but true transformation would come from outside influences, namely, industrial titans eyeing medicine as the next frontier for profit.

Enter John D. Rockefeller, the oil magnate who controlled 90% of U.S. refineries through Standard Oil. By the early 1900s, Rockefeller had amassed America’s first billion-dollar fortune. But his ambitions extended beyond petroleum. Scientists were uncovering the potential of petrochemicals, chemicals derived from oil, to revolutionize industry and health.

Scientists discovered they could synthesize vitamins in labs. Rockefeller understood the potential of this—petrochemicals could be used in patentable drugs, unlike unpatentable natural remedies.

Holistic practices had dominated medicine, with nearly half of U.S. doctors and medical schools incorporating naturopathy, homeopathy, botanical medicine, and Indigenous knowledge.

Rockefeller himself even praised homeopathy as “an aggressive and progressive step in medicine” and relied on it personally throughout his long life. Yet while privately benefiting from natural medicine, he publicly worked to delegitimize it—branding it as “quackery” when it threatened his business interests. Hemp, with its pain-relieving and anti-cancer properties, posed a particular threat to his emerging pharmaceutical monopoly.

To monopolize the medical and pharmaceutical sectors, Rockefeller needed to dismantle the very traditions he quietly used. He turned to his ally, Andrew Carnegie, the steel baron and eugenics advocate.

The book “The American College: A Criticism,” by Abraham Flexner and published in 1908, critiqued American college education and captured the attention of Carnegie. He then suggested Flexner write a hospital report for Rockefeller.

Flexner received $5,000 for his work writing what would become the Flexner Report. This funding came from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.

Even though he only had a bachelor’s degree, Flexner visited all 155 medical schools in the U.S. and Canada, assessing them based on their curriculum, admissions, teaching, and graduation criteria.

He then produced the “Flexner Report” in 1910. The report noted that many schools were “beyond repair” and “in no position to make any contribution of value,” prompting reforms that cut the number of medical schools down to only 66.

The Flexner Report’s impact was devastating, leading to over half of U.S. medical schools shutting down—especially those teaching homeopathy, naturopathy, herbalism, and other traditional healing practices.

The report also indicated that the system was overcrowded, substandard, and needed radical standardization. It was deemed there were too many doctors and schools, advocating a science-based, “hands-on” model focused on diagnosis, drugs, and surgery—pushing aside prevention and cures that couldn’t be patented.

The Rockefeller Foundation provided substantial funding—amounting to the largest investment in medical education of its time—for the development of scientific medical schools as Flexner recommended.

Rockefeller amplified the report through his media influence, sparking public outcry. By 1912, Flexner was lecturing in Europe on the “new American model.” In 1913, he joined the Rockefeller-founded General Education Board, where advisor Frederick T. Gates urged channeling funds into “chemically-oriented medicine.”

The sidelining of natural remedies paved the way for oil-derived synthetics. The medical system came to depend on pharmaceuticals and surgery—exactly the model that maximized Rockefeller’s profits.

Surviving schools adopted a rigid curriculum emphasizing drugs, surgery, and institutional control, accessible only to those who could afford the revamped training.

Rockefeller poured more than $100 million into compliant institutions via the General Education Board, modernizing them while embedding his agents on boards to enforce adherence. He co‑opted the AMA as the arbiter of “scientific” medicine, turning it into a gatekeeper that vilified alternatives as “quackery” or “folk medicine.” Non-compliant doctors faced demonization, jailing, or professional ruin.

The AMA gained congressional authority to license schools, endorsing only drug-centric programs. Rockefeller even founded the American Cancer Society in 1913 and influenced the FDA’s drug approval process.

This wasn’t a simple reform; it was a calculated “Hegelian dialectic.” Rockefeller first amplified the problem—substandard schools and dangerous patent medicines—then imposed his solution: a new system centered on petrochemical pharmaceuticals. Natural medicine, with its focus on prevention and lasting cures, wasn’t just sidelined—it was deliberately discredited and branded as quackery.

Scientists were funded to dissect plants’ healing properties, not to validate them, but to recreate patentable synthetic drugs. Medical journals, bankrolled by pharmaceutical giants, promoted profitable patented solutions while dismissing cheap, natural remedies.

By pouring vast sums into compliant schools, Rockefeller guaranteed that only his patented petrochemical model would remain, while herbalism, homeopathy, and other holistic practices were written off as “unscientific.” Rockefeller’s massive investments weren’t philanthropy—they were strategy, ensuring only his patented, oil-derived system could survive.

The focus shifted from prevention and cures to symptom management—profitable surgeries and drugs that turned patients into lifelong customers, guaranteeing endless revenue streams.

The Flexner Report birthed “Big Pharma” and “Rockefeller Medicine,” a profit-driven empire intertwined with the AMA and FDA. Physicians became conduits for synthetic pills, often bribed to prescribe them, while vaccines, chemotherapy, and radiation gained AMA endorsement despite risks.

Today, this system persists. Big Pharma’s influence over regulators, researchers, and policymakers still prioritizes patents and profits over cures and prevention.

Rockefeller’s descendants continue philanthropic ties to health institutions, but the monopoly he forged endures. This is a cautionary tale of how industrial ambition reshaped medicine from holistic care to a trillion-dollar industry focused on treatment, not true cures and wellness.

The system we live under wasn’t accidental—it was engineered. Chronic illness, rising healthcare costs, and FDA capture are not flaws in the design, but features of a model built for profit, not wellness.

This thread was written for Wide Awake Media by @JebraFaushay.

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