More about social diseases: Disease-mongering

Have you ever wondered whether we have more diseases now? I recently made up a name, ethnogenic, to cover diseases caused by society. I had in mind problems like AD/HD, dyslexia, and maybe obesity. But then I ran into an article describing a different aspect of ethnogenic diseases:

Drugs companies 'inventing diseases to boost their profits’
By Mark Henderson, Science Correspondent (The Times Online, UK.)

PHARMACEUTICAL companies are systematically creating diseases in order to sell more of their products, turning healthy people into patients and placing many at risk of harm, a special edition of [Public Library of Science Medicine].

The special issue, edited by David Henry, of Newcastle University in Australia, and Ray Moynihan, an Australian journalist, reports that conditions such as female sexual dysfunction, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and “restless legs syndrome” have been promoted by companies hoping to sell more of their drugs.

Here is the original article (Public Library of Science Medicine ): Disease-Mongering. According to the article, disease mongering is the practice of “creating” new diseases or redefining existing conditions to reinterpret them as diseases. (As an illustration of this point, I recently commented on another study about inflating the frequency of depression. The authors in that study sought to deflate claims that nearly half the U.S. population suffers from depression.)

Here, from the article on Disease-mongering, is a list of methods for disease-mongering.

Promotion of anxiety about future ill-health in healthy individuals. See if you can find examples on the evening news.

Inflated disease prevalence rates. That sounds familiar.

Promotion of aggressive drug treatment of milder symptoms and diseases.

Introduction of questionable new diagnoses—such as PMDD or social anxiety disorder—that are hard to distinguish from normal life. Why am I thinking AD/HD right now?

Redefinition of diseases in terms of surrogate outcomes (i.e., osteoporosis becomes a disease of low bone density rather than fragility fractures)

Promotion of drugs as a first-line solution for problems previously not considered medical, such as disruptive classroom behaviour or problematic sexual relationships.

I have one point of dissent here. It is not just the drug companies that are promoting the Disease Interpretation of Everything. The first level of responsibility lies with the researchers. They are depending on a serious and wide-spread disease to gain them political and financial support. I think they should make full disclosure of the extent to which they have a financial interest in the Disease Interpretation of their research.

And then notice the news media. Will they look for conflicts of interest in this research discoveries of new, more troublesome, and more treatable diseases? Will they do fact checking? Will they report the extent to which their ad income depends on the pharmaceutical industry? Or have they already joined in the disease-mongering? You be the judge.