Pharmaceutical Mental Health

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Pharmaceutical companies and commercial medicine shape and determine mental health and illness in various ways. It is important to address these concerns to understand how diseases and illnesses are defined within the medical system and in society. It is to be noted that there are other aspects of the medical system that are influential in shaping mental health and illness. These agents may be medical insurance companies, hospitals, clinics and health care workers. This paper focuses on the influence of the pharmaceutical industry and the techniques they use to shape mental health while gaining profit. Ultimately, pharmaceutical companies and commercial medicine determines mental health and illness through forms of disease mongering, public …show more content…

They used direct-to-consumer ads in television and in magazines to bring awareness to the most recent drug along with information about illnesses (Rhee, 2008). These advertisements may expose symptoms that are considered to be widespread and treatable with the use of drugs, promising the viewer to be returned to normal function (or what we consider non-deviant behavior). Consider the condition, social phobia, as an example of how advertisements have generated demand and interest in the public. Consequently, it has also generated revenue for the drug companies. The prevalence of social phobia was considered to be rare in the 1980’s, however it has been considered common by 1994 (Kitsis, 2011). The company GlaxoSmithKline utilized the media to depict posters of a man playing with a teacup. The phrase “imagine being allergic to people” was asserted on these advertisements encouraging the public to take medication to decrease the symptoms associated with this condition (Kitsis, 2011). This method, along with sales representatives and physician speakers, have ultimately encouraged patients to ask for drugs by name, and most often they are prescribed. In fact, more than one third of patients asking for medication have seen it by name through the media, and many of these consumers are unaware of the availability of other forms of therapy, such as …show more content…

It may even be argued that the social construction of illness is being replaced by the corporate construction of disease (Moynihan, 2002). These drug companies, which manufacture drugs used for treating mental health disorders, use public relations techniques to expand interest in their products and promote these products to both prescribers and consumers (Gosden, and Beder, 2001). These companies pay particular attention to key prescribers such as psychiatrists and medical doctors. The pharmaceutical companies enlist front groups, otherwise known as partners, who will take part in public debates and government hearings to express “community concern”. If these groups do not already exist, the pharmaceutical companies will create them to generate interest. Most often these front groups are groups of citizens that personally agree with promoting the drug or are experts in the same field (Gosden and Beder, 2001). This method publicly promotes the outcomes desired by the drug companies while claiming to represent public interest (Gosden and Beder, 2001). Front groups also campaign to manipulate public opinion that would benefit the enhancement of psychiatric drugs. An example of this strategy is how pharmaceutical companies have funded front groups to actively encourage drug-based treatment over other forms of therapy (i.e. talk therapy). Furthermore, the companies will selectively fund research

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