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OVERVIEW
A controversial and provocative look at the way pharmaceutical companies are
creating and marketing illness.
Three decades ago, the head of one of the world's leading drug companies made
some remarkably candid comments. Wishing his company was more like the chewing
gum maker Wrigley's, the chief executive of Merck said it had long been his
dream to make drugs for healthy people, and sell to everyone'. That dream now
drives the marketing machinery of one of the most profitable industries on the
planet.
Using their dominating influence in medical science, drug companies are marketing
fear in order to re-define human illness. In alliance with company-friendly
doctors and sponsored patient groups, the all-powerful pharmaceutical industry
is helping to widen the very definitions of disease, in order to expand markets
for its drugs.
With compelling clarity, Selling Sickness reveals how the
ups and downs of daily life are becoming mental disorders, and common complaints
are being transformed into frightening conditions. Shyness is Social Anxiety
Disorder, PMS is a psychiatric illness called PMDD, and active children now
have ADHD. As more and more ordinary people are turned into patients, drug companies
move ever closer to that dream of selling to everyone.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Selling to everyone - High cholestorol
2. Donuts for the doctors - Depression
3. Working with celebrities - Menopause
4. Partnering with patients - Attention deficit disorder
5. Making risks into medical conditions - High blood pressure
6. Advertising diseases: Premenstrual dysphoric disorder
7. Shaping public perceptions - Social anxiety disorder
8. Testing the markets - Osteoporosis
9. Taming the watchdogs - Irritable bowel syndrome
10. Subverting the selling - Female sexual dysfunction
Epilogue - What can we do?
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Ray Moynihan is one of the world's leading health writers.
His work has appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the Australian
Financial Review, the British Medical Journal, Lancet and New England Journal
of Medicine.
Alan Cassels is a Canadian researcher and writer who works
on drug policy issues.
PRIZES
Shortlisted 2005: The inaugural Literary Award in the 50th Walkley Awards for
Excellence in Journalism.
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