Disease mongering

Selling cures for imaginary diseases is where the drug industry rakes in the cash, argues Alan Cassels. Real need barely enters the picture.

Thirty years ago the British physician, Julian Tudor-Hart published his famous ‘inverse care law’: ‘those who most need medical care are the least likely to get it.’

Modern pharmaceutical research is playing Dr Hart’s law out on a macabre global scale. While the debilitating diseases of the poor – such as malaria, tuberculosis and sleeping sickness – have few or no treatments, the drug companies are busy working on cures for a ballooning set of ‘made-up’ diseases of the rich and privileged.

Many people still believe that medicine is a noble pursuit, dedicated to curing humankind’s ills. But the reality is that ‘cure’ is passé. According to Alex Hittle, a biotech analyst at AG Edwards in St Louis: ‘We sometimes joke that when you’re doing a clinical trial, there are two possible disasters. The first disaster is if you kill people. The second disaster is if you cure them.