Healthy Skepticism Library item: 3926
Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.
Publication type: media release
Henry D, Moynihan R.
Inaugural Conference on Disease-Mongering
diseasemongering.org 2006 Apr 11
http://www.diseasemongering.org/
Notes:
Ralph Faggotter’s Comments:
The world’s first international conference on Disease-Mongering has started today in Newcastle Australia!!
This conference should prove to be an eye-opener to many in the journalistic and medical professions.
Full text:
Welcome
The conference will be held at the
David Maddison Building
Royal Newcastle Hospital
Pacific Street
Newcastle NSW 2300
Invitation
It is a great pleasure to invite you to the inaugural Conference on Disease-Mongering to be held in Newcastle New South Wales, Australia on April 11th to 13th 2006.
The conference will bring together academics, researchers, health professionals, health managers, journalists, writers and consumers who share an interest and concern over the trend to corporate definitions of diseases with a primary interest in making profits rather than a concern for the public health.
The Conference will feature speakers who are internationally recognized in this field. We are also inviting free papers on any topic related to disease-mongering and medicalisation.
The conference will be organized around a mixture of plenary, parallel and small group sessions. The aims of the conference are to review a range of examples of disease-mongering, to develop a common view on the character and magnitude of the problems created by disease-mongering, to develop some position statements and a research agenda that will hopefully lead to collaborative projects
Professor David Henry
Physician
School of Medical Practice and Public Health
The University of Newcastle, NSW
Ray Moynihan
Journalist and Writer
School of Medical Practice and Public Health
The University of Newcastle, NSW
Key Dates
Early Registration Deadline: 24 February 2006
Abstract Submission Deadline: 1 March 2006
News
Conference starts this morning a DVD will be available
11 Apr 2006
We are making a DVD of the conference proceedings which will include a short mockumentary on motivational deficiency disorder. The cost will be $33 AUD including GST. If you are interested in obtaining a copy send an email to David.Henry@newcastle.edu.au
Day Registration available now
06 Apr 2006
Registration fees are $200 for April 11th $200 for April 12th and $150 for April 13th. If you are interested call Conexion the conference managers on 02 9518 7722
Abstracts now available
24 Mar 2006
The abstracts for several of the presentations to the Conference are now available by following the link on the rights hand side of the home page. This file will be updated over the next few days.
Final Program now available
13 Mar 2006
The program commences on 10:00 AM on Tues April 11th 2006 and the conference ends at 1:00 pm on Thurs April 13th 2006. Full details of session and presentation times and presenters are now available. Follow the program button on the panel to the right and download the pdf file. Please direct any enquiries to David.Henry@newcastle.edu.au
Program
The program is available for download. This file requires the Adobe Acrobat Reader.
A Provocative Symposium on the Selling of Sickness
The ascendancy of market logic has both expanded and legitimised the commercialisation of medicine. In the pharmaceutical sector, competitive enterprise dominates not only the development of drugs -and increasingly their diffusion – but also the very definitions of the illnesses they are used to treat.
Industry capacity for innovation, essential for sustaining high profitability, has arguably extended beyond the invention of novel products to the creation of new illnesses, disorders and dysfunction, and the expansion of old ones. Using informal alliances with physician and patient groups, and with the assistance of public relations experts, drug companies now ‘brand’ conditions just as they brand medicines.
Contentiously characterised as ‘disease-mongering’ by the late Lynn Payer many marketing strategies appear to be about selling sickness in order to sell drugs. Examples of disorders that have been represented in this way are as diverse as male and female erectile dysfunction, social anxiety disorder, alopecia, and irritable bowl. No-one questions that some individuals suffering from these ‘conditions’ experience genuine morbidity. The ‘disorders’ are also difficult to define and quantify, tend to be chronic and in some cases seem to represent normal human variation or the predictable but undesired effects of ageing.
In the lead up to this global symposium we are commissioning a series of thoughtful academic and accessible discussion papers that will assay the role of marketing in contemporary medical practice, and attempt to understand and challenge the phenomenon of disease-mongering.
The conference will be organized around a mixture of plenary, parallel and small group sessions. The aims of the conference are to review a range of examples of disease-mongering, to develop a common view on the character and magnitude of the problems created by disease-mongering, to develop some position statements and a research agenda that will lead to collaborative projects.
Themes
Invited Speakers
Invited speakers include
