Selling sickness: the pharmaceutical industry and disease mongering
Ray Moynihan, Iona Heath, David Henry
BMJ. 2002 Apr 13; 324(7342): 886–891.
doi: 10.1136/bmj.324.7342.886

[Thanks Stephen]

EXTRACT:
A lot of money can be made from healthy people who believe they are sick. Pharmaceutical companies sponsor diseases and promote them to prescribers and consumers. Ray Moynihan, Iona Heath, and David Henry give examples of “disease mongering” and suggest how to prevent the growth of this practice

There's a lot of money to be made from telling healthy people they're sick. Some forms of medicalising ordinary life may now be better described as disease mongering: widening the boundaries of treatable illness in order to expand markets for those who sell and deliver treatments. Pharmaceutical companies are actively involved in sponsoring the definition of diseases and promoting them to both prescribers and consumers. The social construction of illness is being replaced by the corporate construction of disease.

Whereas some aspects of medicalisation are the subject of ongoing debate, the mechanics of corporate backed disease mongering, and its impact on public consciousness, medical practice, human health, and national budgets, have attracted limited critical scrutiny.

Within many disease categories informal alliances have emerged, comprising drug company staff, doctors, and consumer groups. Ostensibly engaged in raising public awareness about underdiagnosed and undertreated problems, these alliances tend to promote a view of their particular condition as widespread, serious, and treatable. Because these “disease awareness” campaigns are commonly linked to companies' marketing strategies, they operate to expand markets for new pharmaceutical products. Alternative approaches—emphasising the self limiting or relatively benign natural history of a problem, or the importance of personal coping strategies—are played down or ignored. As the late medical writer Lynn Payer observed, disease mongers “gnaw away at our self-confidence.”

Although some sponsored professionals or consumers may act independently and all concerned may have honourable motives, in many cases the formula is the same: groups and/or campaigns are orchestrated, funded, and facilitated by corporate interests, often via their public relations and marketing infrastructure.

CONTINUE HERE:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC1122833/?s=09

#covid19 #Pandemicism #capital_accumulation #medicalization #disease_mongering #fear_mongering

EXCLUSIVE: Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò Responds to Critics of His Positions Regarding COVID Tyranny and Ukraine

EXTRACTS:
It seems simplistic to dismiss everything with the accusation of “conspiracy theory” against those who denounce the plots instead of those who plot them, especially when the conspiracy is admitted by its own architects....

Of course it is very strange that, in the face of a series of facts agreed on both by doctors and scientists (with regard to criticism of the experimental serum) and by political scientists and experts in international strategy (with regard to the present Russian-Ukrainian crisis), these two friends and colleagues – De Mattei and Weigel – are undertaking a joint action against me, not because of what I say – they are careful not to refute anything I have said by debating the facts or producing clear evidence – but simply deciding ex cathedra that since I do not share their positions on the pandemic or the Ukrainian conflict, I must be silenced without appeal, because of an alleged duty of respect towards “their” truth....

The ideological continuity between the pandemic farce and the Russian-Ukrainian crisis continues to emerge, beyond the evidence of the events and statements of the subjects involved, in the fact that the ultimate perpetrators of both are the same, all attributable to the globalist cabal of the World Economic Forum....

CONTINUE HERE:
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/03/exclusive-archbishop-carlo-maria-vigano-responds-critics-positions-regarding-covid-tyranny-ukraine/

#covid19 #Ukraine #Vigano #critical_thinking #censorship #fear_mongering

Just in time for RFK Jr.'s nomination:

U.S. health officials report first case of new form of mpox in a traveler

Health officials said Saturday they have confirmed the first U.S. case of a new form of mpox that was first seen in eastern Congo.
The person had traveled to eastern Africa and was treated in Northern California upon return, according to the California Department of Public Health. Symptoms are improving and the risk to the public is low.

Mpox is a rare disease caused by infection with a virus that’s in the same family as the one that causes smallpox. It is endemic in parts of Africa, where people have been infected through bites from rodents or small animals.

Earlier this year, scientists reported the emergence of a new form of mpox(opens in a new tab) in Africa that was spread through close contact including through sex.

More than 3,100 confirmed cases have been reported just since late September, according to the World Health Organization. The vast majority of them have been in three African countries — Burundi, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Since then, cases of travelers with the new mpox(opens in a new tab) form have been reported in Germany, India, Kenya, Sweden, Thailand, Zimbabwe, and the United Kingdom.

Health officials earlier this month said the situation in Congo appears to be stabilizing. The Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has estimated Congo needs at least 3 million mpox vaccines to stop the spread, and another 7 million vaccines for the rest of Africa.

The current outbreak is different from the 2022 global outbreak of mpox where gay and bisexual men made up the vast majority of cases.

(Also note the last sentence: no longer do they use the "men who have sex with men" line.)

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/u-s-health-officials-report-first-case-of-new-form-of-mpox-in-a-traveler-1.7112923

#TheNextOne #RFKjr #MonkeyPox #fear_mongering