Artificially created diseases; examples (I)

Based on a well-crafted strategy aimed at artificially expanding the market, the pharma giants seem to have become experts in "disease-making" and exaggerating common symptomatology in order to turn healthy people into drug-dependent patients. , a practice whose consequences are serious for public health and for the trust that patients have in the medical system.

• Pharmaceutical marketing: From the treatment of diseases to their invention

The modern pharmaceutical industry, a global market of billions of dollars, is no longer limited to treating and curing the sick. In recent years, new advertising techniques have been developed that aggressively target healthy audiences, turning people's natural anxieties into treatable conditions. This phenomenon, often called "disease mongering", exploits deep-seated fears of illness, aging and death to drive demand for drugs.

The strategy to turn minor disorders or common symptoms into diseases is relatively simple: pharmaceutical laboratories take minor health problems and turn them into serious diseases through a wave of clinical trials, scientific articles and media campaigns. Many times, these diseases are completely unknown until the drug that claims to treat them is released. It is as if a miracle happened before the diagnosis: the drug is already on the market.

Once a "new" disease is identified, a complex marketing and manipulation machine begins, designed to convince both the public and the medical community that this pathology represents a serious threat. The result? A new market for drugs that, in many cases, treat isolated or even non-existent symptoms.

Advertising and awareness campaigns launched by the big players in the pharmaceutical industry have a profound impact on the perception of health among the public. These strategies aim to redefine what it means to be healthy, transforming ordinary symptoms of everyday life into serious medical disorders requiring pharmacological treatment. This approach, called "niching," exploits people's fears and insecurities.

• a) Fibromyalgia - One of the Artificially Created Diseases

A relevant example is the promotion of fibromyalgia, a condition vaguely defined at the time and characterized by muscle pain and fatigue. In an advertising campaign in the United States, Pfizer presented the drug Lyrica, originally developed to treat diabetic pain, as a treatment for fibromyalgia. Although there is no clear evidence of an organic cause for fibromyalgia, Pfizer has focused its campaign on educating the public about the symptoms of the condition, suggesting that millions of people may be suffering from it without knowing it. In fact, the ad promoted the existence of the disease rather than the drug itself, building a broad market for Lyrica.

As a result of this campaign, Pfizer recorded an increase in global revenues in 2007, of which $1.8 billion was from the sale of Lyrica, despite the serious risks of side effects such as weight gain and insomnia, according to an article published by the site Revue XXI.fr.

Medical historian Edward Shorter of the University of Toronto has criticized this approach, arguing that there is no evidence to support fibromyalgia as a true organic disease. Still, the condition has become a huge business opportunity for Pfizer because chronic pain, regardless of its origin, is widespread and often inadequately treated.

Regarding fibromyalgia, the daily newspaper Nouvel Obs.com noted that a new disease was launched like "a new brand of jeans" is launched. In addition to the example of this invented disease and profited by the pharma giant Pfizer, the quoted source mentions its antidepressant Deroxat from the company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), which proved dangerous for teenagers, and the anti-inflammatory Vioxx from the company Merck, an anti-inflammatory withdrawn from the market in 2004 and is said to have been responsible for 30,000 deaths in the United States.

Regarding the invention of new diseases, Patrick Landman, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, researcher and co-founder of the Stop-DSM association, recently told the website Hecstories.fr: "In psychiatry, Big Pharma can create diseases. This discipline is easy prey because of its gray areas: the distinction between normal and pathological is often complex. No mental illness gives rise to biological markers that would be detectable in blood or by MRI. Clinical diagnosis, partly subjective, therefore depends on the criteria used. Let's take an example: a bereaved person may be sad, dejected, may experience psychomotor retardation, may have dark thoughts, may refuse to work or eat... Pain, which is part of the human condition, it can thus resemble two drops of water in a depressed state. Where to place the limit? After six months, we can consider mourning to be pathological. But the American psychiatry manual DSM (ed. - Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, published by the American Psychiatric Association, which describes and classifies mental disorders), which is very influential worldwide, shortened this period in its editions from recent years. From now on, and under certain conditions, a person who has lost a loved one can, after two weeks, be considered not simply bereaved, but depressed and likely to take antidepressants. However, the American press has already denounced the links of major conflicts of interest between the laboratories and psychiatrists participating in the DSM. Connections between companies and opinion leaders or patient associations also influence disease creation, as do certain social expectations."