Selling Sickness: How Drug Companies are Turning Us All Into Patients

Three decades ago, the head of one of the world's leading drug companies made some remarkably candid comments. Wishing his company was more like the chewing gum maker Wrigley's, the chief executive of Merck said it had long been his dream to make drugs for healthy people, and sell to everyone' That dream now drives the marketing machinery of one of the most profitable industries on the planet. Using their dominating influence in medical science, drug companies are marketing fear in order to re-define human illness. In alliance with company-friendly doctors and sponsored patient groups, the all-powerful pharmaceutical industry is helping to widen the very definitions of disease, in order to expand markets for its drugs. With compelling clarity, Selling Sickness reveals how the ups and downs of daily life are becoming mental disorders, and common complaints are being transformed into frightening conditions. Shyness is Social Anxiety Disorder, PMS is a psychiatric illness called PMDD, and active children now have ADHD. As more and more ordinary people are turned into patients, drug companies move ever closer to that dream of selling to everyone.