http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-larry-dossey/big-pharma-health-care-cr_b_613311.html?show_comment_id=51007573#comment_51007573
Disease Mongering (a term introduced by health-science writer Lynn Payer in her 1992 book Disease-Mongers: How Doctors, Drug Companies, and Insurers Are Making You Feel Sick. )
This strategy has also been called "the corporate construction of disease" by Ray Moynihan, Iona Heath and David Henry in the British Medical Journal. "There's a lot of money to be made from telling healthy people they're sick," they say. "Pharmaceutical companies are actively involved in sponsoring the definition of diseases and promoting them to both prescribers and consumers."
The author of the book, Lynn Payer, has identified several disease-mongering tactics. Here are just 3 of them, that seem particularly relevant to the discussion:
• Recruiting doctors to spin the message
• Using statistics selectively to exaggerate the benefits of treatment
• Promoting the treatment as risk free
Since I've had several experience where I've been offered medical treatments for diseases I didn't have, and since EVERY doctor I saw within a 10-year-period was unaware that the vaccines they gave me contained thimerosal, to which they KNEW I had a documented allergy -- I realize that I can no longer trust that NHS, CDC, FDA, and even my doctors know or care what's best for me, nor do they always have a thorough knowledge of the medications they prescribe. In fact, most of the time, they rely on the pharmaceutical rep's recommendations.
Edited by Taximom5 - 11/25/12 at 7:26pm
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