Moreover, if a patient already ill with one infection comes down with another after being treated with a drug, this will systematically be put down to a weakened patient rather than to a problem with that drug. It's not the medicine itself that is the problem, it's our current way of assessing the benefits of medicines. Abandoning a Search for 'Root Cause' Another systematic area, and one that doctors take considerable care over, is the difference between symptomatic treatment and treatment of the underlying cause. When problems recur, doctors look hard for the underlying cause. However, even with the care being taken today it is still a danger area.
Skin conditions caused by allergy are a particularly challenging area.
A GP may not be able to identify the allergen and therefore can only prescribe an anti-inflammatory. Treating the symptom by suppressing it is not entirely satisfactory. Anti-inflammatories interfere with the body's immune response. One of the known side effects of topically applied anti-inflammatories is that they can cause rashes to occur elsewhere. Another is that skin where they are applied can age more rapidly.