Disease Branding. Selling Sickness to the Public

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Description

Decades ago few people worried about cholesterol, but thanks to medical research high LDL levels are now seen as a major health problem. And due to related pharmaceutical studies, statin reducers are among the most widely used drugs today. But did a medical challenge really spark those advances, or did Big Pharma realize that cholesterol could boost profits? How urgent is the health issue behind every new pill and treatment? This film examines what's known as disease branding, an aspect of pharmaceutical marketing that focuses on building public awareness of medical dangers-some genuine, some questionable. While disease branding can destigmatize problems (for example, it can reframe incontinence as "an overactive bladder" and encourage people to seek treatment) it can also put healthy people at risk, leading them to take medicines with potentially dangerous side effects. It might be said that to sell a cure, you first need to sell the disease.