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Mon, 10 Apr 2006

Drug firms 'inventing diseases'

I don't think I'd go so far as to claim they're inventing diseases, but they are certainly doing their utmost to medicalise certain conditions: even shyness is now "avoidant personality disorder", and is "treatable" with expensive prescription drugs. In my younger days the "cure" for shyness was a stiff drink...

I also not sure that I'd blame the drug companies for this malaise - it seems to be to be part of a broader cultural trend, the feeling that every sad, ugly or messy part of the human condition is an "imperfection", and that we can indeed "fix" ourselves with little or no effort on our part. Of course, fixing ourselves will usually involve commerce, and commerce thrives on advertising, and we've come full circle, eh?

Pharmaceutical firms are inventing diseases to sell more drugs, a leading medical journal says.

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On 4/12/2006 06:13:35
Arwin wrote

Not my decision

If it were up to me, and obviously not much is, I wouldn't allow pharmaceutical firms to advertise at all. I know this would go against Dave's Libertarian philosophy, but drug firms are already regulated up to their eyeballs what's one more regulation and one that would save the consumer money to boot. While I'm at it what's up with state run universities advertising? That seems a waste of money too. I mean if you don't know about University X and are too lazy to find out about it on your own, should you be a college student?

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