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HOW DO YOU INVENT A DISEASE?
It’s a widespread disease
and for doctors it came
out of nowhere, entirely
unexpectedly. Nowadays
an estimated 18 million
Americans are suffering from the effects
of some degree of gluten intolerance.
Doctors are diagnosing the condition on
an ongoing basis—but they often fail to
tell their patients the most important
thing: There is no proof of the existence
of such an intolerance. So far diagnoses
can only be made indirectly. It’s loosely
based on the idea: If other intolerances
can be excluded, then it must be gluten.
And because doctors are for this reason
not so sure about whether this ailment
actually exists, a gluten intolerance—in
contrast with celiac disease, which is a
hereditary autoimmune disorder that’s
characterized by chronic infl ammation
of the mucous membrane of the small
intestine and entails symptoms such
as bone pain and anemia—is offi cially
considered to be “disease mongering.”
Researchers suspect that only 1 in 20 gluten
avoiders suffers from a genuine intolerance.
The winner of this development: the food
industry, which has created a range of
foods for gluten-intolerant individuals.
But that’s not all. Beyond relatively
harmless food intolerances the list of
fabricated putative diseases is getting
longer and longer. One example is the
“Sisi syndrome,” a purported form of
depression. The ostensible symptoms
include restlessness and skittishness,
hyperactivity, mood swings, and self-
esteem problems. Medicine and science
writer Jörg Blech discovered that the
disease didn’t come to light in a doctor’s
office—but was instead invented in a
pharmaceutical company’s marketing
department in order to design an ailment
for an already developed pill, according
to Blech. But why go to all this trouble?
“From the view of the pharmaceutical
industry, the wrong people normally get
ill—that is to say the poor and the old,“The la
knowledg
doctors and p
continues to
Results from
studies ofte
practitioners
years ofwho have a shorter life expectancy,”
observes epidemiologist and health
economist Karl Lauterbach. That’s why
in recent years many pharmaceutical
giants have been focusing on diseases
that are easier to apply to those who can
pay—and that’s most easily done with
diseases that are directly designed forthe corresponding target group. “In this
system doctors become the industry’s
accomplices,” remarks Blech. After all,
it is a lucrative market for practicing
physicians to provide consultations or
services that cannot be reimbursed by
insurance companies. As Blech puts it,
“If you’re sending people home, you’re
not earning any money.”KARL LAUTERBACH
Politician and professor at
the University of CologneTHE FALSE
DEPRESSION
Some illnesses don’t have
to be invented. It is enough
to lower the limit values or
redefi ne the symptoms of a
disease. For example, the
criteria for depression were
much stricter 20 years ago.
According to psychiatry’s
classifi cation system, the
Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Disorders,
a diagnosis of depression
can now be made just two
weeks after a bereavement.
Until recently that period
was set at two months,
and before that a year,
since grieving people often
exhibit symptoms similar to
those of depressed people.
As a result, people who just
need time to recover by
their own efforts may be
declared patients too fast
and treated or medicated.“It is innate for people
to strive for good health.
But the disease mongers
exploit that.”
JÖRG BLECH, MEDICAL AUTHORi