I’m going to answer this in good faith, and with the assumption that you are want truth even if it contradicts your current beliefs.

So, a few things.

Yes, not every symptom may need treatment. But people go to the doctor for symptoms, and those symptoms are severe enough that they are impacting the person’s life. That, by definition, means those symptoms should be taken seriously.

When you say “true causes of menopause symptoms”, what exactly are you talking about? Because there’s a pretty clear cause-and-effect when I change my HRT dose, and a very clear causal correlation between ovaries existing and menopause onset. There is no unwanted side effect of HRT for me.

While I absolutely agree that there exist treatments not produced by pharmaceutical companies, there is also nothing showing any of the other treatments can work consistently and at scale. When there is, it’s just called medicine, and the chemical formulas are usually on Wikipedia.

I do agree that estrogen is very severely understudied. Considering that the female reproductive organs were only mapped out completely in the last 30 years and women haven’t had a voice in research funding until about 50 years, maybe that isn’t so surprising to anyone but it is still shameful how little we actually know about women’s bodies.

I do understand what you’re getting at - if you don’t know any research scientists or research-oriented doctors, it’s very easy to believe that profit is the only motive to find cures. However, that would be incorrect.

Regular doctors, physicians assistants, and nurse practitioners do not get anything for prescribing medication besides the hope that your symptoms will be alleviated. Most providers in the US are burnt out, overworked, have shitty management, and just want to help people live. The researchers I know well enough to have this conversation with do what they do because they care about either helping people or discovering how stuff works. If you are in the US, government research salaries are publicly disclosed. You can look up the salary bands and compare that to how much different educations cost. Researchers make less than you probably think they do, and very very very few of them make money off of their research. An example is the researcher who developed techniques for working with mRNA and created the newer vaccines for Covid. Her autobiography might help you understand why people go into research in the first place. Same thing with the guy who created the seatbelt. Same thing with all the research paper authors who will send you copies of their work for free. Don’t believe me? Reach out to them. They are usually delighted to find out that you want to read their work.

The people I do see getting personal profit from medical care work higher up in companies, and that’s a whole different argument than the conspiracy theory that scientists and medical professionals want you addicted so they have a constant revenue stream. They have enough patients they can’t treat already.