Faculty of Philosophy, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland.
Br J Clin Pharmacol. 2022 Jan;88(1):34-39. doi: 10.1111/bcp.14835. Epub 2021 Mar 31.
The pharmaceutical industry and drugs advertisements are sometimes accused of "creating diseases". This article assesses and describes the role of that industry in fostering medicalization. First, the notions of medicalization and pharmaceuticalization are defined. Then, the problem of distinguishing between harmful overmedicalization and well-founded medicalization is presented. Next, the phenomenon of disease mongering is explained and illustrated by the case analysis of medicalizing pain and suffering in three contexts: (1) the general idea of medicalizing physical pain, (2) the medicalization of grief and (3) disease mongering of pseudoaddiction-a condition promoted in order to increase the demand for opioid pain relievers.
制药行业和药品广告有时被指责为“制造疾病”。本文评估并描述了该行业在促成医学化方面的作用。首先，定义了医学化和药物化的概念。然后，提出了区分有害过度医学化和合理医学化的问题。接下来，通过对三种情况下将疼痛和痛苦医学化的案例分析，解释并说明了制造疾病的现象：（1）将身体疼痛医学化的一般观念，（2）悲伤的医学化，（3）为增加阿片类止痛药需求而推广的伪成瘾疾病的制造。
