It may be that the "branding of diseases" has created many common illnesses people are faced with today. This is a brilliant marketing scheme, and quite unknown to the public who consumers medication treating these diseases daily. In an article titled "How to brand a disease - and sell a cure" on CNN.com, Carl Elliot writes on how a 1928 book titled "Propaganda" by Edward Bernays gives an excellent framework for the popular world of medicine today. The idea is that by persuading reporters to write about "new" diseases, or ones that are becoming more common, there is no need to advertise drugs directly. People will automatically want them; it is unnecessary to convince the public they "need" the drugs.
The examples of diseases the article gives are things such as overactive bladder, erectile dysfunction, panic disorder, and ADHD. The article claims these diseases were once quite rare, but the branding of them through certain marketing campaigns made them "culturally relevant". The author is unclear on what he deems culturally relevant, and the term is perhaps laid out better in the book "Propaganda". However, the motions of making a product culturally relevant does not seem to be difficult for the media as far as material items go, so why not do it with a disease? Since media has existed, it has influenced our purchasing power and made us believe we need an item to be happy or even functioning human beings.
This is a perfect example of the waves that flow through consumer culture. What will be next? Most individuals desire what they see everyone else buying (or watch television and are told to need it). For example, the drug Paxil was marketed as treatment for the problem "previously known as shyness". The company launched a campaign using celebrity interviews and heavily funded psychiatric lectures across the country. "The results were remarkable. In the two years before Paxil was approved for social anxiety, there were only about 50 references to social anxiety disorder in the press. But in 1999, during the PR campaign, there were over a billion references." As a result of our influence by the press, Paxil sales skyrocketed.
These are FDA approved drugs, and thusly double legitimized in the purchaser's eyes. Blind to the effects of intaking chemicals everyday with iffy side effects, and the mental state of mind that there is something "wrong" with each of us, culture soaks up every last bit of what is fed by media. Perhaps in ten years we will be marketed holistic medicines that are much healthier for individuals, but by this model it is guaranteed to be taken advantage of for the purpose of profit.
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/10/11/elliott.branding.disease/
I wonder if celiac disease has been similarly branded? It seems like now everyone needs to go gluten-free. We've got gluten free groceries, restaurants, and catering. Has the incidence of celiac's really increased? Is culture more accepting of what was once a stigmatized pathology? Or is it just marketing? I can't help but wonder were all these gluten-free folks were ten years ago . . .
ReplyDeleteI really appreciated this post because I totally believe that illnesses have become a marketing brand. How else will pharmaceutical companies peddle their snake oil pills to consumers?
ReplyDeleteI just saw a documentary at the Parkway Theater last week that details a young man's experience of going off Paxil, after he realized it wasn't really necessary for him to take it. The result was frightening, watching him go through horrible physical and psychological withdrawl symptoms.
Sometimes I think mass media has become the new form of government in our culture. We literally are sold a bill of goods everyday; whether its the food we eat, cleaning products, medications, diseases, education..the list goes on. Is our sickness real? That's a question consumers should ask themselves every day, where health is concerned. Think about all those mental illness diagnoses? I wonder how many of those were created just to support a pharmaceutical's drug?
Look at how colds have been branded. You walk into any Walgreens and there are shelves full of cold medicines that claim to cure colds or lessen symptoms. Turns out, that's all propoganda. A cold is a virus and nothing you can take will actually prevent it or lessen the symptoms. There are things you can eat like Chicken Noodle Soup to make you feel better, but the cold virus has to run its course. And doctors are no longer advocates for patients, since they push samples of drugs to their patients all the time. I wonder how many years big pharma has been marketing diseases, and how many victims there are out there, who were on medications they didn't need to be, for a disease they maybe didn't really have.