Disease Mongering

Disease-mongering is a term to describe the process of widening the boundaries that define medical illness in order to expand markets for those who deliver and sell treatments. It can take many forms, including framing risk factors as diseases, portraying mild problems as severe pathology, widening existing definitions and constructing whole new categories of medical illness. While the analysis of disease-mongering has to date focussed largely on pharmaceutical marketing, and unhealthy industry-professional entanglement, the phenomenon is broader and deeper than a critique of drug company promotions. The concern is that by transforming more and more of the ups and downs of ordinary life into the signs and symptoms of treatable conditions, we may be producing much iatrogenic illness, wasting many resources and fundamentally shifting what it means to be human. After a brief history of the concept, some examples will be provided, before concluding with some challenges facing those interested in the problem.