Grief: new illness is born...

The proposal by the American Psychiatric Association to create a new illness – prolonged grief disorder – and to redefine children's mental health is the stuff of dreams for Big Pharma

The revised Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), scheduled for publication in May 2013 by the American Psychiatric Association (APA), proposes that grief reactions of more than two weeks may be diagnosed as depression. And where DSM leads, the rest follow. The World Health Organisation's international classification of diseases group is debating the creation of a new illness – prolonged grief disorder.

Crucially, once a behaviour has been labelled as an illness, it becomes a legitimate target for treatment by Big Pharma. The transformation of bereavement into a mental disorder will create a new global market for antidepressant therapy. And a recent critical Lancet editorial describing such transformation as diagnostically simplistic and therapeutically flawed, will present little obstacle.

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The opening statement of Ivan Illich's 1975 publication Medical Nemesis was: "The medical establishment has become a major threat to health." Today, medicalisation of normal behaviour is a globally important contributor to over-prescribing and iatrogenic harm. But to gauge its local impact, you need only ask your pharmacist how many bin liners they've accepted this week.(Más)

Slide: F.Comas/Curso Postgrado Mktg. Farmacéutico
Facultad Farmacia/ Universidad Central de Venezuela (UCV)