Disease mongering is a pejorative term for the practice of widening the diagnostic boundaries of illnesses, and promoting public awareness of such, in order to expand the markets for those who sell and deliver treatments, which may include pharmaceutical companies, physicians, and other professional or consumer organizations. Examples include male pattern baldness and certain social phobias.
In discussions specifically about psychiatric diagnosis, the term is frequently used by proponents of the antipsychiatry movement, and Scientology-based critics as just one part of their criticism of psychiatry or specifically biopsychiatry. Examples include ADHD and bipolar disorder.
Proponents of this practice argue that the pharmaceutical industry is only providing the public with information about its options and that actual prescription is a matter to be discussed between patient and doctor. Opponents, however, claim that this approach leads to the unnecessary prescription of drugs, that its motivation is primarily or only to profit the drug companies, and that it may actually harm instead of help patients.
A 2006 Newcastle, New South Wales international conference, reported in PLoS Medicine, explored the phenomenon of disease mongering. Journalist Ray Moynihan satirised disease mongering in a BMJ "news" item that appeared in its April Fool's Day edition 2006, titled "Scientists find new disease: motivational deficiency disorder".
Famous quotes containing the word disease:
“Drug misuse is not a disease, it is a decision, like the decision to step out in front of a moving car. You would call that not a disease but an error of judgment.”
—Philip K. Dick (1928–1982)