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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
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Posted by pseudoname on April 18, 2006, at 17:09:53
The first international Conference on Disease-Mongering just ended in Australia. Disease-mongering is defined as “the deliberate expansion of a diagnostic gray area to encompass conditions that would not normally be considered abnormal” in order to sell more treatments.
One example is marketing Viagra to younger & younger men who could not have been medically diagnosed with any erectile dysfunction before the Viagra ad campaigns.
That article featuring Babble in the New York Times last year got cited.
The conference papers are available free at PLoS: http://collections.plos.org/diseasemongering-2006.php, including one by David Healy on marketing mood stabilizers, one about using teachers to push ADHD, one about restless leg syndrome in the news.
I think most people at Babble have the “real” conditions, by any standard, so maybe the marketing helps us by encouraging drug makers to invent new products to sell? Maybe not. A quote: “Expanding and altering the consumer's perception of disease is just as effective, and evidently a lot easier, than finding new cures.”
Posted by john berk on April 20, 2006, at 17:47:16
In reply to Conference on Disease-Mongering, posted by pseudoname on April 18, 2006, at 17:09:53
Thanks for that site, it was beyond interesting, especially the look at marketing toward bi-polar disease, incredible...john
Posted by pseudoname on April 20, 2006, at 17:53:56
In reply to Re: Conference on Disease-Mongering » pseudoname, posted by john berk on April 20, 2006, at 17:47:16
This is the end of the thread.
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