Media and advertising campaigns that apparently aim at increasing public awareness of underdiagnosed illnesses are really marketing tools for drug companies in search of new customers, say a group of authors and researchers who met in Australia this week for a conference on “disease mongering.”

The conference on disease mongering, held in Newcastle, Australia, was timed to coincide with a theme issue of the journal PLoS Medicine, published by the US Public Library of Science (PLoS).

April's issue of PloS Medicine carries 11 peer reviewed articles on disease mongering, which is defined by this month's guest editors as “the …