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People are easily duped about new diseases, conference is told

Newcastle, New South Wales Bob Burton

The enthusiasm with which news outlets uncritically reported the spoof disease motivational deficit disorder and the drug indolebant took their creators by surprise (BMJ 2006;332:745, 1 Apr).

David Henry, the convenor of a conference on disease mongering held last week in Newcastle, New South Wales, said the media coverage showed “that it is relatively easy to get [out] the concept of a disease that doesn’t exist and a treatment that doesn’t exist.”

Dr Henry, who is clinical pharmacologist at the University of Newcastle, said the explanation for such gullibility was that “when it comes to health, people suspend the scepticism they use in other areas of their life.”

Martin Palin, the founder of the Sydney based medical public relations company Palin Communications, disputed the suggestion that public relations companies “created” new diseases for drug companies. Public relations people, he argued, “do not dictate . . . [Full text of this article]

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