DISEASE MONGERING

ARNST (2006) BUSINESS WEEK / 5/8/2006/ 30

GIBBS & BOWER (2006)TIME/5/1/41-52

Big Pharma is out to enlarge its market. Do you have some vague symptoms? You need a pill.

SOCIAL ANXIETY DISORDER/ BIPOLAR DISORDER/ RESTLESS LEG SYNDROME/IRRITABLE BOWEL SYNDROME/ FEMALE SEXUAL DYSFUNCTION.

All the above need some kind of pill and big pharma will provide it for you. Indeed every illness can truly be an illness or the social anxiety order could be reduced with one alcohol drink, female dysfunction with a vibrator, and so forth. However, the advertisements guarantee that someone will go to the medical doctor and ask for the product. The general practioner may be suspicious, but she or he knows that giving you the pill will keep you as a  patient. This can happens if this med does not disrupt your other medications.

In a related story about medicine, doctors biggest nightmare is to become a patient. They know what can happen. They also fear that their relatives will get hurt if they go to the hospital. Why?

Hospitals have grown, have more technology, and tons more meds. Much of the time, all this is not on computer, but go through verbal and paper pass throughs. So you might get the wrong med, the wrong surgery, or the right med at the wrong time.