We appreciate Martins et al ’s effort to present an amendment to WONCA’s P4 (quaternary prevention) definition. However, there are some problems with their approach. First, we found it problematic to state that ‘demedicalisation is often not a science-based concept’. Dating back to the 1960s and 1970s (for example, Ivan Illich’s Medical Nemesis — 1974) there is an enormous amount of academic and scientific evidence on the political and social …