Opinion
"Underreported" conditions or common problems exaggerated?
LETTER — Posted March 12, 2007
Regarding the story "Chronic daily headaches may go underreported": (Article, Feb. 12): Chronic headache sufferers have my sympathy, but it seems as though every malady from alopecia to zits is either underreported or underrecognized these days.
Either we are the sickest nation on earth, or our patients are too ashamed to discuss their problems with us, or many conditions have become ripe for condition branding, as pointed out by authors Ray Moynihan and Alan Cassels in their book Selling Sickness: How the World's Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies are Turning Us All into Patients.
Common problems such as constipation and sexual dysfunction both have been redefined as diseases, and other conditions also have been redefined to encompass a far greater percentage of the population. But this particular issue is far too complicated to lay the blame at the doorstep of Big Pharma.
Academics, epidemiologists and other experts may stand to gain professionally by manufacturing or exaggerating illnesses. Our diminishing health care dollars would be spent more wisely treating people who are poor and legitimately sick with real diseases.
Arthur Lazarus, MD, Chadds Ford, Pa.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2007/03/12/edlt0312.htm.
