BIG PHARMA AND THE PROBLEM OF DISEASE INFLATION

Over the course of the past decade, critics have increasingly called attention to the corrosive influence of the pharmaceutical industry on both biomedical research and the practice of medicine. Critics describe the industry's use of ghostwriting and other unethical techniques to expand their m...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of health services 2014-01, Vol.44 (2), p.307-322
Main Authors: Gabriel, Joseph M., Goldberg, Daniel S.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Clinical Trials as Topic - ethics
Clinical Trials as Topic - trends
Diseases
Doctors
Drug industry
Drug Industry - ethics
Drug Industry - trends
Ethics
Ethics, Medical
Ethics, Pharmacy
Forecasting
Fraud - ethics
Fraud - trends
Goals
Humans
Industrial profit
Industry
Inflation
Marketing - ethics
Marketing - trends
Markets
Medical research
Medicalization - ethics
Medicalization - trends
Off-Label Use - ethics
Pharmaceutical industry
Physicians
Profits
Public Health - ethics
Public Health - trends
Redefinition
Science
The Politics of the Pharmaceutical Industry
United States
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Summary:Over the course of the past decade, critics have increasingly called attention to the corrosive influence of the pharmaceutical industry on both biomedical research and the practice of medicine. Critics describe the industry's use of ghostwriting and other unethical techniques to expand their markets as evidence that medical science is all-too-frequently subordinated to the goals of corporate profit. While we do not dispute this perspective, we argue that it is imperative to also recognize that the goals of medical science and industry profit are now tightly wed to one another. As a result, medical science now operates to expand disease definitions, lower diagnostic thresholds, and otherwise advance the goals of corporate profit through the redefinition and expansion of what it means to be ill. We suggest that this process has led to a variety of ethical problems that are not fully captured by current critiques of ghostwriting and other troubling practices by the pharmaceutical industry. In our conclusion, we call for physicians, ethicists, and other concerned observers to embrace a more fundamental critique of the relationship between biomedical science and corporate profit.
ISSN:0020-7314
1541-4469
DOI:10.2190/HS.44.2.h