"Mainstream medicine" doesn't have "only one answer for almost all diseases." Think of the almost stereotypical statement from a doctor: "Stop smoking, eat less, and exercise more." There's research in burn therapy and speech therapy and many other fields which has nothing to do with drugs. The push for mosquito netting is a prevention remedy for malaria. Go back in history and you'll find that garbage collection in large cities was often run by the public health department. Even the law that "all employees must wash hands before going back to work" is there for a medical reason.

Here's what the WHO says about cancer: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2003/pr27/en/ . 1/3rd of the cases can be prevented by "Reduction of tobacco consumption", "A healthy lifestyle and diet", and "Early detection through screening". The first two of those have nothing to do with drugs.

Also: "The predicted sharp increase in new cases – from 10 million new cases globally in 2000, to 15 million in 2020 - will mainly be due to steadily ageing populations in both developed and developing countries and also to current trends in smoking prevalence and the growing adoption of unhealthy lifestyles." Feel free to download the full report.

As for "treatments to ANY major disease that are not monetizable as drugs"; vaccines are not drugs. Getting the shot for tetanus is much less profitable to a pharmaceutical company than going through treatment, but no one seriously argues for removing the vaccine so pharmas can make more profit.

Economically, if there is a major disease then people will pay to not have the disease. Therefore there's always going to be an issue of money involved, even if it's promoting a diet or exercise program. The flip side of your question is, do any major diseases have a remedy which can be done without monetization? Most of the historically big ones are solved (eg, by washing hands before assisting in a birth, or making sure children get vitamin D). Plus, the non "mainstream" medicines are also influenced by the money; look how big the homeopatic industry is.

"There are no other types of treatments out there besides pills?" I just listed a half-dozen.

"And that there aren't any cures to be found?" Pardon? Up until the 1980s the treatment for gastric ulcers was "rest, bland foods, and drink milk." Now we know most ulcers are caused by Helicobacter pylori and it's completely curable with drugs. How is this not a cure? Or what is it you want?

As for "a better way of organizing and verifying medical information about various drugs, research, conditions, etc." -- what is it you want? Go to http://cdc.gov/ . They've spent a lot of time compiling overview information. Want more information? Medical researchers have spent a lot of time providing exactly what you've asked for. What is it you want?

If anything, it's the paradox of choice. There's so much information that most people ignore what's available, because they would rather not have to wade through everything. Which is why drug ads, and dieting ads, and fitness ads, and so on work. Sad to say.

The statement that "most of the innovation comes from the independents" is just wrong. Read http://www.nature.com/nrd/journal/v9/n11/abs/nrd3251.html . During 1998-2007, 252 new drugs were approved by the FDA. 58% had their origin in pharmaceutical companies, 18% in biotech, and 24% from universities.

Besides, most of the university research _is_ published freely, although it can cost money to access the journals (or a visit to a research library). And just because a novel compound shows effectiveness in a research environment doesn't mean it will become a good drug, and there's a lot of research which needs to be done to get from "I have an idea which works in a test tube" to "here's a new treatment for a disease", and most of the intermediate steps are "doesn't work, try again."