The Medicalization of Society: Selling Sickness for Profit
“Over the past two decades the pharmaceutical industry has moved very far from its original high purpose of discovering and producing useful new drugs. Now primarily a marketing machine to sell drugs of dubious benefit, this industry uses its wealth and power to co-opt every institution that might stand in its way, including the U.S. Congress, the FDA, academic medical centers, and the medical profession itself.“
-Dr. Marcia Angel (The first woman to serve as editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, the premier journal of medical science in the United States)
The purpose of this paper is obvious; health challenges get medicalized instead of chiropractic-ized. The world could be looking at Covid from an empowered perspective rather than a medical one. For example; “OK, there’s a bug out there. Here’s the game plan to chiropractic-ize:”
Get your family an additional adjustment every week to prevent it and/or prepare your body to shed the virus easily and quickly should you experience an infection.
Get adjusted daily if you’re infected
No sugar! Sugar depletes your immune system. Instead, follow a Mediterranean diet with a focus on plants.
Exercise! It radically increases the function of your immune system.
HAVE NO FEAR – NOW YOU’RE READY FOR ANYTHING.
SELLING SICKNESS
The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the Annals of Internal Medicine, and The Lancet, published an all-points bulletin that reported a red flag warning regarding the fact that clinical research had really become nothing more than a commercial activity by pharmaceutical companies and medical providers with financial ties to these manufacturers.
In an article entitled “Selling Sickness: the Pharmaceutical Industry and Disease Mongering,” the British Medical Journal explored the depths of the disaster created by what they called the “medicalization” of society.57 This is the medical industry’s practice of turning commonly found symptoms into a “disease” so that its members can prescribe a medication for it. Additionally, this practice changes the ranges that are considered normal for issues such as blood pressure or cholesterol in favor of values that cause millions more people to be prescribed medication.
There is what has been described as an “unholy alliance” between pharmaceutical manufacturers and the doctors who are informing the population that they are in fact ill. Doctor’s go to school to learn how to help. However, due to the speed at which information is coming across a doctor’s desk, and given how busy doctors are with their medical practices, they couldn’t possibly keep up with the demands.
In a 2003 publication, The British Medical Journal said, “Twisted together like the snake and the staff, doctors and drug companies have become entangled in a web of interactions as controversial as they are ubiquitous (everywhere).”5 A key strategy that these alliances use involves targeting the news media by providing them with stories that are designed to create fears about a condition or disease and then draw attention to the latest form of treatment.
This has led to problems on several key levels:
People with benign, normal symptoms are now taking dangerous drugs. In addition, as we are convinced that the natural signs of aging and common conditions are diseases that have treatable symptoms, we are prescribed dubious drugs to treat them.
People are being tested regularly and very few people who are middle aged can pass tests without being told that they have some sort of illness or a high risk of developing one. As a result, people are undergoing unnecessary treatments with drugs and invasive surgeries.
Another term that is described in the BMJ article called “disease mongering,” comes from the process in which medical professionals create fear and confusion in patients in order to get them to comply. What researchers have actually discovered is that the more the medical industry influences a nation, it is not just that the people become sicker—but the sicker they consider themselves to be. In other words, under the influence of a more medical model, people consider themselves to be weak, broken, and genetic defects rather than brilliant, powerful, and supernatural.
Remember, with God all things are possible,
Dr. Ben Lerner
Angell, M. 2005. The truth about the drug companies: How they deceive us and what to do about it. Random House LLC.
Moynihan, R. (2002). Selling sickness: the pharmaceutical industry and disease mongering. British Medical Journal, 324, 886.