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The Mothers Act represents the ultimate example of disease mongering at its worst because the eight-year attempt to pass this federal legislation has evolved into profiteering never before exhibited so conspicuously.
Disease mongering "is the selling of sickness that widens the boundaries of illness and grows the markets for those who sell and deliver treatments," according to Ray Moyniahan and David Henry in the April 11, 2006 paper in
PLoS Med, titled, "The Fight against Disease Mongering."
"It is exemplified most explicitly by many pharmaceutical industry -- funded disease-awareness campaigns -- more often designed to sell drugs than to illuminate or to inform or educate about the prevention of illness or the maintenance of health," the authors explain.
"Drug companies are by no means the only players in this drama," they point out. "Through the work of investigative journalists, we have learned how informal alliances of pharmaceutical corporations, public relations companies, doctors' groups, and patient advocates promote these ideas to the public and policymakers -- often using mass media to push a certain view of a particular health problem."