On the other hand, pharmacological therapies lend themselves to evaluation by randomized controlled double-blind prospective clinical trials in a way that the quartet of lifestyle therapies do not. One crucial fact about pharmacological therapies is that it is easier to make money from these therapies than it is from the quartet of health-promoting therapies. Of course, spiritual healers, psychotherapists, nutritional counselors, and the like are paid, and some charge exorbitant amounts for their services. But we all have some general idea of what learning healthy ways of living is worth to us. Moreover, the health-promoting therapies generally represent open therapies in which there are no special secrets.
Open therapies create open markets which tend to keep prices within a reasonable range.
The intrinsic value of a pill or injection, however, is much more difficult to assess. It depends upon the efficacy of some mysterious inner properties of the pharmacological agent. The secret is what draws us. And, in a sense, the greater and more mysterious the secret, the more reasonable it may appear that obtaining this elixir of life involves a certain monetary expense. They can be marked up more easily for higher profit margins.