Drug firms 'inventing diseases' (BBC)

[eppur_se_muova]

Pharmaceutical firms are inventing diseases to sell more drugs, researchers have warned.

Disease-mongering promotes non-existent diseases and exaggerates mild problems to boost profits, the Public Library of Science Medicine reported.

Researchers at Newcastle University in Australia said firms were putting healthy people at risk by medicalising conditions such as menopause.
***
Report authors David Henry and Ray Moynihan criticised attempts to convince the public in the US that 43% of women live with sexual dysfunction.
***
more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4898488.stm

[panader0]

1. When I was young I don't think that PMS had been coined yet

Now there are thousands of such catch phrases for everything imaginable.

[hobbit709]

4. I remember when PMS came out

a woman I knew used the term to explain her emotional outbursts, etc. that she was constantly having. She blew up at me one day when I told her the P stood for Pre not Post when she had said the day before that her period had just ended. Too often this advertising gives people a handy tag to blame things on rather than deal with whatever the actual cause is.

[MADem]

5. Well, the P in that case stood for the generic

PAIN in the ass!!!!

[ldf]

44. great video - progenivoritox

http://anon.newmediamill.speedera.net/anon.newmediamill/animatebb2.mov

[cynatnite]

39. Weird...I go PMS two days before I start

Along with the stupid cramps, bloating and back pain, I'm a complete bitch for almost two days before. Least now I know what it is and I can control the emotional aspects much better than before when I had no idea what it was.

[hobbit709]

2. "Disease mongering"

if that isn't the perfect descriptive term then what is?

[Horse with no Name]

3. Just a personal story

I don't doubt this for a minute.
I was diagnosed in early 90's with a "rare" disease requiring monthly infusions of very expensive medication ($5k a month). I was told this would be for the rest of my life. Of course I had veryyyyyyy good insurance.
I took this medicine every month for about 11-12 years religiously. There was actually a nationwide shortage of the medication a few years back--but my Doctor assured me that there was nothing to worry about because I was on a special nationwide list that the physicians had to submit for their patients who were at the most risk of not getting the medication.
Please let me preface this by saying that this wasn't a "quack". He is a highly respected physician who publishes and speaks across the country. My treatment was followed for the first few years by physicians at the National Institutes of Health and specialists at Beth Israel who asked me to consider an experimental treatment jointly with the initial treatment.
On the medication, I still got sick 3-4 times a year, however, the hospitalizations were fewer, but that could be because I took a lot of IV medication at home.
After my insurance maxed out, it was amazing that this same Doctor whom I had a long term relationship with, decided that it would be "okay" to let me go without the medication.:eyes:
I have been off the medication several years now, and I still get sick 3-4 times a year, and admittedly the illnesses do last a little longer, but IMHO not enough to warrant spending $5k a month.
I have NO doubt that I was diagnosed correctly. I just question the necessity of the expensive treatment.

[janx]

6. Restless Leg Syndrome

That's my personal favorite!

[RaleighNCDUer]

11. My first thought.

Why get up and stretch your legs when you can simply take a pill?

[Atman]

13. You know what? I agreed with you before I got it!

I wish they'd give it a cooler name...phantom ambulatory dysfunction or something.

I refuse to take anything for it, because a)I don't like taking any drug I can't administer wrapped in a ZigZag, and b) my wife says it progresses, and if I'm just getting it now, it isn't bad enough to be taking drugs for anyway. I'll wait...a few years from now they'll find the drug for it causes exploding knee caps or something.

Anyway, "RLS" sucks. It only happens at night, after sitting back to watch tv, or lying in bed. Mostly in my left leg; my whole leg will start to tingle just a little tiny bit, then suddenly it feels like someone sticks a pin in my calf or thigh. There is no time to scratch it or do anything other than to move, quickly, as if I bee landed on you or something. Think of it as Tourette's in your legs. The second I move my leg, the tingle and the pin-prick goes away. It may take five or ten minutes for the next "episode," or sometimes several come in row.

No one invented this, and I can't see that it is a reaction to any other drugs because I don't take anything else. I eat mostly organics and very little meat, so I doubt food additives cause it. I'm an active person, play volleyball all summer, snowboard all winter. But when I sit down to relax, yikes.

:(

EDIT for NCevilDUer; It has nothing to do with getting up and stretching or moving. Like I said, I'm very active. No "symptoms" when I'm sitting at my drawing board working, and I'm very active and not overweight. You don't even have time to "get up and stretch your legs." It comes on like a mini seizure almost.

[EC]

17. Through experience I've found the best cure for

Restless Leg Syndrome was an orgasm - maybe it's just the extending of the legs and curling of the toes, but it really works....

[allalone]

26. my mom had rls

it's no joke

[FlaGranny]

32. My father had that, but we didn't know

the name for it at the time. I remember him "fidgeting" with his legs back in the 1940s and 50s. He would sit down in a chair and off he would go. He did it in bed too, and also had a sleep disorder where he would strike out and accidently hit my mother, so he resorted to sleeping alone so he wouldn't hurt her.

Strangely in the last couple of months I've developed something similar (not the RLS). I'll be having a nightmare and try very hard to kick someone attacking me and I actually woke myself up twice by kicking out as hard as I could. Fortunately I wasn't facing my husband at the time and didn't kick him.

[WiseButAngrySara]

7. I SO agree! How many people take medications that are completely unnecess

because they responded to an ad on television? Who is not sad at times, or what man has probably at one time or another believed that he really had 'erectile dysfunction?' These are just two of many examples. Antibiotics have been overprescribed for the common cold (a viral illness, that antibiotics do not even treat) for decades! Pharmaceutical companies have actually created "new" designer drugs to maintain their patents, and inhibit the competition of generic drugs...pure profit motivation, without a darn about those who are really suffering from a disease that could be less expensively treated. Pharmaceutical companies have done tremendous good in the past, but I have lost so much respect for them, that in my mind, they are little better than 'used car salesmen' or bogus insurance salesmen. The sick and the poor and the fearful and the ignorant (including physicians) have become dependent upon them.

:kick: & R!

[woo me with science]

8. Psychiatrists have been doing it for years.

Massive overdiagnosis of true diseases is a problem, too. For example, the Center for Disease Control has standards for diagnosis of Lyme Disease. However, a cottage industry of "specialized" labs has sprung up that use their own, very questionable tests to identify the disorder in a ridiculously high percentage of patients, who are then referred for costly antibiotics regimens and infusion therapies. Some psychiatrists attribute the full range of psychiatric symptoms to untreated lyme disease.

You see the same thing happening with chemical and mold sensitivities, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, and other medical ailments that in many cases have a huge psychological component.

Hysteria is alive and well in 2006.

[WiseButAngrySara]

10. I agree. ....n/t

[KittyWampus]

16. Science works under the Philosophy of Materialism. The human is just

a physical machine. Therefore, why bother working and experimenting with the Psychological componenet of Reality and Wellness and Healing.

Since there's no real respect given to the capacity of our Minds to heal us and the power of using our Consciousness... the only thing left is chemicals and invasive surgery.

[FiveGoodMen]

18. fibromyalgia, there's an interesting one!

My girlfriend, who has lots of aches and pains, heard about this and asked me what I thought. I went internet hunting and found out:

* It's symptoms can include: pain, fatigue, sleep disorders, irritable bowel syndrome, memory impairment, tingling, the feeling of swollen extremities, dizziness, sensitivity to loud noises, TMJ, etc. etc. etc. etc. OR any subset of the above.

* The cause is unknown.

* There is no cure.

* There is no test to see if you have it; they just ask you a lot of questions and tell whether or not you've got it!

Fibromyalgia: a word for whatever is bothering you that can't be diagnosed, cured, treated, or defined!

[BeTheChange]

34. Fibromyalgia is a crock.

My husband and I got into a car accident. We were rear ended on ice by a car going about 20 miles per hour which pretty much sent my neck and back into spasms for months afterward.

Im a weenie when it comes to certain types of pain, especially that which is related to my muscles and bones. When I was young I broke a wrist severely followed by another wrist and an ankle. Each one of those experiences made me realize at a young age how important your body is to allowing you to do the fun things you want to do. Not to mention that breaking things really freaking hurt.

However, instead of having a mentor that taught me how to use my body to make itself stronger with proper excercise and diet... my role models were busy telling me not to do any activity that might cause me to get hurt.. dont roller skate! Dont do that cartwheel. Dont run so fast over that gravel. Put both hands on the bike.. yadda yadda. So when this car accident happened I trusted that my doctor would help me get the pain to go away.

Little did I know that doctors salivate over car accident victims and insurance pay offs. What the doctor really should have done was to do the tests.. mris, xrays, all that crap and when they came back with nothing, he should have told me to get off my ass, fight through the pain, use ice and heat and start working on getting those muscles back into shape.. getting the xcess weight off my body and STRETCHING.

Instead, he pursued a path of pain killers, vioxx and lidocaine injections. He diagnosed me with fibromyalgia due to the nodules that had formed on the muscles in my back and the atrophy of said muscles. No shit, Sherlock. When you lay around sedentary for months hopped up on pharmacuetical narcotics your muscles are going to atrophy. The next thing he wanted to try was botox injections. That was enough for me. I took myself off the pain meds.. thank god I had never really taken the vioxx but a handful of times because I hate medications... I stopped going to see him and I started naturally medicating myself (use your imagination on that one), stretching and following on an excercise program.

The first two weeks were miserable. But then, something started to change. I didnt hurt as much and over the next couple months I was 95% back to where I was before the accident and the only reason I hold back 5% is because I still had to be very cognizant of stretching multiple times a day or my neck and upper back rebelled.

I was on that pharmacuetical monkey Doctor's plan for 8 months with very little improvement when if I had used commonsense I would have saved myself half a year of pain.

Fibromyalgia my ass.

[Phx_Dem]

9. A really good example of this type of marketing

would be the explosion of #s of people diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. The question is though, were there all these people that were suffering but not diagnosed, or whether the marketing created the demand.

There is a book that came out years ago, much of it is still relevant, the title is "The Diseasing of America" It talks about the huge increase of "disorders", "syndromes" and how the medical community "medicalized" most mental illness etc.

[KurtNYC]

12. They are also reducing the thresholds of real diseases

What is considered high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes have all been moved down so that a larger number of people are considered to have these medicable conditions.

[KittyWampus]

14. If I have time, I'll post this over in the "Skeptics" Forum

[Sadie5]

21. I do suffer from HBP

So did my father and grandfather. I have taken various meds and have done well. A few years ago I had to find a new Doctor after mine retired. I went to this cocky young fellow and had my records with me. He immediately prescribed this new drug which went OK. It was a combo drug as opposed to taking three meds twice a day i had to only take it once. Three weeks later he saw me again just to get the office call money I guess. He changed the meds to a stronger version twice daily and I started swelling up like a balloon right away. My bottom pressure dropped dangerously low. When I went back to tell him of my miserable experience he demanded that I stay on this same medication and started telling me off as he said he was the one with the degree, not me. Told me I imagined everything. I had immediately stopped the meds as soon as the nausea and swelling started. Changed docs and went back on my old meds, every things fine now. They do try to peddle meds to get incentives from the pharmacy companies.

[Avalux]

15. They're good at labeling a vague group of symptoms

and turning them into a chronic condition that may need to be treated for the rest of your life ($$$$ in drugs for years). I won't say medical professionals are in cahoots....but......

One of my favorite new medical conditions is "Restless Leg Syndrome". I'm not saying people don't suffer from this, but it's more a symptom of another medical condition than its own entity. Ropinarole, an antipsychotic, is the FDA-approved treatment for this condition (you've probably seen the commercials). An antipsychotic???

[lectrobyte]

20. I'm waiting for a cure for "alien hand". If nothing else, it will make

for some great TV commercials:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alien_hand_syndrome

Alien hand syndrome (anarchic hand or Dr. Strangelove syndrome) is an unusual neurological disorder in which one of the sufferer's hands seems to take on a life of its own. AHS is best documented in cases where a person has had the two hemispheres of their brain surgically separated, a procedure sometimes used to relieve the symptoms of extreme cases of epilepsy. It also occurs in some cases after other brain surgery, strokes, or infections.

[Kixel]

36. Wasn't that a Seinfeld episode?

It's sad when George's life becomes reality...

[SmokingJacket]

40. Ray Bradbury wrote a great story about this! nt

[Atman]

24. More a symptom of another medical condition?

My doctor laughs because he can't make any money off me. I just turned 47 last week, and because my wife is an APRN, I'm forced to go for the regular physicals most men won't do. And my doc always comments that I could be a poster for him...not looks-wise! LOL! But because about six years ago I dropped 55 pounds, stopped red meat and alcohol, and now my BP is perfect, cholesterol perfect, I don't take so much as aspirin.

So unless you know something I don't, I think you're making generalizations because the "syndrome" sounds goofy and it's easy to joke about. Still, I'm not taking any fucking anti-psychotic for it, that's for damned sure. I like my particular psychoses!

[slide to the left]

19. Some people have real ailments

I have asthma, allergies and depressions. The allergies run on my dad's side, depression on my mom's. The asthma is realted to the allergies. I am one of those that has to take lots of meds, though I don't have to take as many as I used to.

I have gotten sick of doctors telling me that I need this and that. I had horrible headeaches and was sent to get x-rays, MRIs, neck procedures and other things. Nothing came of all of that. Guess what works: popping my neck. I have great insurance, but the co-pays and percentages were killing me. It makes me so mad that Dr.s don't just tell you what you can do to treat yourself without meds.

[Phx_Dem]

28. depression is not a disease

though I'm sure your medical doctor wants to think it is.

[NickB79]

29. Depression is most certainly a disease

Unless you believe in Scientology, that is.

[Phx_Dem]

30. No I'm not a scientologist

I don't want to get into a big thing over this, the word disease has a very specific meaning. You are basically swallowing whole the propaganda from the medical community.

[Phx_Dem]

41. some info for you

From National Institue of Mental Health, note that NOWHERE on this site are you going to find Depression described as a disease.

WHAT IS A DEPRESSIVE DISORDER?
A depressive disorder is an illness that involves the body, mood, and thoughts. It affects the way a person eats and sleeps, the way one feels about oneself, and the way one thinks about things. A depressive disorder is not the same as a passing blue mood. It is not a sign of personal weakness or a condition that can be willed or wished away. People with a depressive illness cannot merely "pull themselves together" and get better. Without treatment, symptoms can last for weeks, months, or years. Appropriate treatment, however, can help most people who suffer from depression.

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/publicat/depression.cfm#ptdep5

[loyalsister]

37. Medical doctors and depression

- not the best combination. Lay people and those with limited experience are worse.
Depression comes in many flavors. There's clinical and situational and many varieties within.
The organic origins are brain chemistry. Situational\environmental factors contribute.
If a person may be born with a biological tendency that is simply triggered from time to time.
or, more commonly, brain chemistry reflects the moods that come with grief, and other experiences.
It is a matter of sorting through to see what is the primary determinant.
If the former is the case, it is referred to as mental illness and sometimes mental disease in other language. If not an exact fit, disease is most certainly is an appropriate analogy.

[slide to the left]

45. IF my thyroid did not produce enough hormone

it would be a disease. So if i don't produce enough seratonin, why is that not a disease. Alcholism is a disease. Depression and bi-polar disorder run in my family. I can trace the line back though my mom's mom's family. I am one of the smart ones in my family that take medication and has not destroyed their life (some are in and out of jail, divorces, drugs and alchohol abuse).

[Phx_Dem]

49. good question

But what causes the low seratonin? Is it caused through cognitive processes or is it caused by biological processes that affect the cognitive processes. Some researchers refer to this as the top-down/bottom-up causality question. You see the fact that seratonin is low does not "prove" etiology, because your own thoughts have a downward causality while biology/physiology has an upwards causality. Some researchers think that the most likely scenario is a bi-directional causality.

It's worth pointing out in your own personal experience, that you and your family share a lot on environmental and social variables which all or some could also affect the incidence of mental illness in your family.

Until the etiology of substance abuse and depressive disorders are clearly established, they cannot be referred to as diseases.

[callous taoboy]

22. Restless Legs syndrome

Saw an ad for it on the tee vee set last night.

"She's got the jimmy legs."

Cozmo Kramer

[Avalux]

31. Read my post #15

:hi:

[Atman]

33. Read my post #13

:hi:

[Avalux]

35. Nothing like first-hand knowledge. Thanks.

And I'm not saying what you experience isn't real. It's just that this "syndrome" has been coined based solely on personal observation and I'm not so sure an antipsychotic for the rest of one's life is the acceptable cure from the data I've seen. There are other conditions that can cause RLS, such as nerve damage, diabetes, iron deficiency and kidney dysfunction that should be explored.

I've found too that a lot of people would more readily take a pill than try other things to alleviate the symptoms (like massage, warm bath, cold compresses). The pharma cos. know this. "Give me something to fix this, doc.".

Didn't mean to offend. :hi:

[ldf]

23. well, i KNOW i have a problem, i pee more than 8 times a day!

i must have some of that drug that keeps you from peeing.

lets see,

once before bed
once overnight
once when i get up

that leaves 5 times for the remaining 16 to 17 hours.

now lets see,

i drink one glass of water when i get up, to take my vitamin
i drink three mug/cups of coffee a day
i drink a glass of water when i get home
i drink another glass of storebought pink lemonade (i'm a homo) around suppertime
i drink one more glass of water or lemonade before i go to bed.

hmmmm.

and i pee more than 5 times during that period. thats once every THREE hours.

OH MY GAWD, I GOT A BLADDER PROBLEM!!!

add that to my restless mind, which i can't seem to turn off (thank you ambien) and restless legs (not really, but you get my drift)

and i am so glad our government is fighting the drug war. that allows me to not worry, and i can peacefully watch and absorb the need for the drugs hawked during the 47 drug commercials i watch daily. but, at least pot is still illegal...

:shrug:

add to that the fact that i had to STOP taking zocor after a few years because the muscle aches got so bad that at times i could hardly walk. that side effect was never mentioned, i had to read about it here on du. THANK YOU, DU!!!

lipitor had unacceptable side effects. so i am now eating oatmeal at least 5 times a week, hoping that will help the cholesterol.

i decided against the paxil, in spite of my ups and downs, because i didn't want to spontaneously commit suicide.

i won't even mention the side effect of flomax, since some of you guys might rush to your doctor to get some. and i SURE won't mention the OTHER side effect of paxil, because i KNOW you guys would be rusing to your doctor to get some...

EVERY designer drug they come up with has side effects WORSE than the cure they are touted for.

the best drug of all? plain old aspirin. works wonders.

so, right now i am taking no prescription drugs except the occasional ambien and an occasional fiorinol for the occasional severe headache. (migrain, cluster, who cares, they still hurt like hell.)

yes, some people do require some of these designer drugs, but the huge profits that are being made by the RX companies are off of people sitting in front of the tv, and marching into their doctor's office DEMANDING a drug they saw on tv.

but, hey, that is what it is all about.

[callous taoboy]

48. I hear that if you take the no-pee pill

you will perspire more. The body must remove unneeded wastes. By the way, I pee a whole lot because I consume 3 pots of coffee per day.

[Kansas Wyatt]

25. It Stopped Being About Health Care Years Ago

When it became a business to extort more profit. People think Bush pandered to the fundie crowd, with the stem cell issue.

Nope, he was representing the pharmaceutical industry to prevent cures, because stem cell research threatened to eliminate the pharmaceutical cash cows, like diabetes. Just think how many billions of dollars are spent on drugs and supplies from the pharmaceuticals for diabetes alone. A cure for diabetes would strike a major blow to the pharmaceuticals guaranteed business and profit margin.

[progressivebydesign]

43. Part of the problem is the public, and how we've been trained

I read an interesting article about how we've been conditioned, by the pharm industry, to DEMAND drugs at doctor's visits. They found that most patients become angry at the physician if they leave without a prescription for whatever ails them. Not everything can be cured or treated with drugs, but the pharm industry has us in that 'pop a pill make it better' mindsent.

[allalone]

27. fibromyalgia

I recently moved and had to find a new dr. OK, I chose a woman dr. near my home. I have asthma, copd and arthritis in the spine, but according to her I am suffering from ta-da, fibromyalgia. This based on a 3 page list of questions. UM, the questions are so vague and general that everybody probably answers yes to some. Long story short, she wants me to take all sorts of medicines and "natural" things that I never heard of. One medicine she wants me to take is Benicar which is a blood pressure medicine that blocks vitamin D, but get this, she wants me to take 8 times the dose recommended by the manufacturer. hunh? Another thing that chased me away was the fact that other patients in the waiting room all have the same problems. Either fibro. or chronic fatigue syndrome. quack, quack.

[seabeyond]

38. went to heart doctor today. he said being prescribed to make money off

drugs. i was telling him i was doing wellbutrin to help me quit smoking. he wanted to know how it was going for me. i told him, i am happy, not depressed so i see nothin and certainly not doing anything with smoking. he said, he didnt think it would. that it doesnt seem to do anything for most all. i asked, why are they acting like this is something that is REALLY going to help. he said, make money off drug. first doctor in a while that is not gung ho on druggin people. i fell in love with the man. not to mention, man he was cute...... yum.....

anyway

i like hearing he doesnt have a lot of expectation out of these drugs

[progressivebydesign]

42. This is one of the most important articles I've read in a while.

They've pretty much nailed it. I can't get through a decorating magazine without pages and pages of drug ads... If you look at the high cost of medicine right now, look at their cost breakdowns.. Advertising is a MAJOR portion of the budget, often more than anything else. Trying to sell women in their 30s and 40s the idea that they have sexual dysfunction.. total BS.

[slide to the left]

46. I just want weed.

Why is that not allowed? Is less harmful than half the crap people put in their body.

[IDemo]

47. Social anxiety

Caution - side effects may include: sweating, nausea, flatulence, stammering, stuttering, eye-rolling, dry mouth.

[anarch]

50. well I'll tell you one thing

"Invented" diseases or not, the health care industry is failing.