"The more people are exposed to doctors and contemporary health
care...the sicker they seem to feel."

BMJ  2005;330 (23 April), doi:10.1136/bmj.330.7497.0-f

BMJ editorial comment on a linked article, and responses to that
article. Zee

Editor's choice
Preventive medicine makes us miserable

The old adage-prevention is better than cure-is one we have heard
so often that it's hard to shift from our minds. It is intuitively
powerful. It just seems to make sense. But shift it we must, for it
fuels what Iona Heath, in her cogent article this week (p 954), calls
"the excessive self confidence of preventive medicine," which is making
us ill and miserable.

Paradoxically, says Heath, the more people are exposed to doctors and
contemporary health care, including the rhetoric of preventive care,
the sicker they seem to feel. Meanwhile the developing world is starved
of affordable treatments. Heath's solution? A tax on preventive drugs
sold in rich countries to fund treatments in poor countries, helping
both sides to a better balance.

http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/330/7497/0-f