Are Pharmaceutical Companies Inventing Diseases, New Study Suggests They Are

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Main Category: Pharma Industry / Biotech Industry
Also Included In: Public Health
Article Date: 11 Apr 2006 - 10:00 PDT

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According to a report in the Public Library of Science and Medicine, pharmaceutical companies are inventing diseases in order to up their sales figures. Scientists at the University of Newcastle, Australia, said such conditions as the menopause are being medicalised by the industry.

Weaved into 'lllnesses' are such reports as 'sexual dysfunction affects 43% of US females', say David Henry and Ray Moynihan, authors of the report. They added that high cholesterol and osteoporosis are being labelled 'diseases' by the industry.

Restless leg syndrome, a relatively rare condition are being blown out of all proportions, they say.

Disease Awareness Campaigns, funded by the industry, are aimed at promoting drug sales rather than informing people about how to take preventive measures.

The researchers accuse the industry of widening the boundaries of illness, which results in more treatments for these 'illnesses', said the researchers.

They added that pharmaceutical industry marketers have the ability to manipulate health professionals and advocacy groups, whose aims are the welfare of patients.

The pharmaceutical industry says it does not invent diseases. It states that it is up to doctors to decide what a disease is.

Disease mongering turns healthy people into patients, wastes precious resources, and causes iatrogenic harm. Like the marketing strategies that drive it, disease mongering poses a global challenge to those interested in public health, demanding in turn a global response. This theme issue of PLoS Medicine is explicitly designed to help provoke and inform that response. See full article.

Ray Moynihan and David Henry are the guest editors of the April 2006 theme issue of PLoS Medicine on disease mongering. Ray Moynihan is a journalist, documentary maker, author, and conjoint lecturer at the University of Newcastle, Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, and recently co-authored Selling Sickness: How the World's Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All into Patients (Nation Books, New York, 2005). David Henry is a professor of clinical pharmacology at the University of Newcastle, Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia, and co-founder of Media Doctor (www.mediadoctor.org.au), a Web site that monitors media coverage of medicine.

Public Library of Science and Medicine

Written by: Christian Nordqvist
Editor: Medical News Today
Copyright: Medical News Today
Not to be reproduced without permission of Medical News Today

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