The Hypocritical Oath
A patient cured is a customer lost in a trillion-dollar industry.
The Hippocratic Oath represents a promise that has defined medicine for millennia. It commits physicians to prioritise the health, wellbeing, and autonomy of patients above all else. It demands diligence, integrity, a focus on healing, not profit, and a pledge to uphold professional standards, maintain patient confidentiality, and “do no harm”. Yet the modern medical system, particularly in the West, has diverged sharply from this core principle. Healthcare has transformed into an industry where the patient is increasingly viewed as a revenue stream, and pharmaceutical corporations hold the ultimate influence over treatment protocols.
Below is an excerpt of the Hippocratic Oath, in Ancient Greek, from the 1923 Loeb edition, followed by the English translation:
<<ἡγήσεσθαι μὲν τὸν διδάξαντά με τὴν τέχνην ταύτην ἴσα γενέτῃσιν ἐμοῖς, καὶ βίου κοινώσεσθαι, καὶ χρεῶν χρηΐζοντι μετάδοσιν ποιήσεσθαι, καὶ γένος τὸ ἐξ αὐτοῦ ἀδελφοῖς ἴσον ἐπικρινεῖν ἄρρεσι, καὶ διδάξειν τὴν τέχνην ταύτην, ἢν χρηΐζωσι μανθάνειν, ἄνευ μισθοῦ καὶ συγγραφῆς, παραγγελίης τε καὶ ἀκροήσιος καὶ τῆς λοίπης ἁπάσης μαθήσιος μετάδοσιν ποιήσεσθαι υἱοῖς τε ἐμοῖς καὶ τοῖς τοῦ ἐμὲ διδάξαντος, καὶ μαθητῇσι συγγεγραμμένοις τε καὶ ὡρκισμένοις νόμῳ ἰητρικῷ, ἄλλῳ δὲ οὐδενί.>>
To hold my teacher in this art equal to my own parents; to make him partner in my livelihood; when he is in need of money to share mine with him; to consider his family as my own brothers, and to teach them this art, if they want to learn it, without fee or indenture; to impart precept, oral instruction, and all other instruction to my own sons, the sons of my teacher, and to indentured pupils who have taken the Healer’s oath, but to nobody else.
The Covid-19 pandemic crystallised the shift of medicine into a commercial enterprise.
In the United States, the federal government introduced programs that tied vaccine distribution and administration to financial incentives for hospitals, clinics, and healthcare professionals. Providers received payments for each patient vaccinated, creating a system where medical decisions became directly linked to monetary gain. Internationally, countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany, and Australia adopted similar incentive schemes, often following the U.S. model. These publicly available policies have been widely reported, yet the narrative remains largely framed as a benevolent public health effort rather than a demonstration of the potential for profit-driven medicine to infiltrate even the most critical health interventions.
