Disease Mongering: Inventing Illness To Sell A Cure

Send us Fan MailDisease mongering has transformed human body diversity into a medical crisis requiring pharmaceutical intervention. When Ray Moynihan wrote that "there's a lot of money to be made from telling healthy people they're sick," he exposed a corporate strategy that reaches its most devastating form in the creation of "ob*sity" as a disease. This wasn't accidental harm caused while trying to help people - this was intentional pathologization of natural human variation, funded by pharmaceutical companies and legitimized through corrupt alliances between industry, doctors, and supposed patient advocacy groups. In this episode, I expose how the disease creation itself causes harm separate from any treatment: social exclusion, healthcare denial, psychological trauma, economic exploitation, and the erosion of bodily autonomy. We created a disease whose only "treatment" doesn't work and causes the very harms we attribute to the disease. They didn't just gnaw away at our self-confidence—they gnawed away at our right to exist. Moynihan, Ray, Iona Heath, and David Henry. ‘Selling Sickness: The Pharmaceutical Industry and Disease Mongering’. BMJ : British Medical Journal 324, no. 7342 (2002): 886–91. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.324.7342.886.Got a question for the next podcast? Let me know!Connect With MeBUY THE BOOK: Never suffer through another through another weight loss lecture from your doctor againJOIN THE NO WEIGH MOVEMENT: Get a free script when you sign upTHE WEIGHTING ROOM: Community with a neurodivergent flavour. **BOOK CLUB** exclusive to Weighting Room members. BOOK A CONSULTATION: For the ultimate transformation in your healthcare journeyEXPLORE THE MASTERCLASS LIBRARY: Become an expert in your condition and the weight inclusive ways to manage itFREE GUIDES:Evidence-based, not diet nonsenseFind me on Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn.