Disease Mongering Is Now Part of the Global Health Debate

Disease mongering is the selling of sickness that widens the boundaries of illness in order to grow markets for those who sell and deliver treatments. It is a process that turns healthy people into patients, causes iatrogenic harm, and wastes precious resources.

Disease mongering is the contemporary form of "medicalisation." It is a process now driven by both corporate and professional interests, and it has become part of the global debate about health care. International consumer groups now target drug company-backed disease mongering as a wasteful threat to public health while the global pharmaceutical industry has been forced to defend its promotion of "lifestyle" medicines for problems like slimming and sexual difficulties...

• Disease Mongering Is Now Part of the Global Health Debate

  http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0050106