Disease Mongering, A New Marketing Tactic.

The pharmaceutical industry is being accused of disease mongering, an allegation that charges them with deliberately hyping and promoting diseases and sicknesses so that paying customers buy their drugs and pills. A number of international bodies have commented on the practice which leads to previously unheard of ailments being suddenly forced into the public conciousness. The ways of doing this are numerous in the technological and internet age where information and advertising is everywhere. Possibly the most talked about recent ailment is erectile dysfunction.

Many people argue that only certain cases of erectile dysfunction are serious and the others are just the natural symptoms of aging and should be left alone. These people are arguing that simple lessening of sexual stamina with age is now becoming a medical condition. The parameters of what actually constitutes a medical problem in the bedroom department is being enlarged massively to get everyone thinking that their slight erectile dysfunction is a medical condition that requires immediate help.

The Internet is probably the biggest culprit in persuading people that they have erectile dysfunction and that they need help. Everyone recieves spam emails promising immediate results from Viagra, Cialis, Levitra and Uprima and telling them that there lives will change instantly if they take them. Today any man can be a Don Juan and make love all night with the use of erectile dysfunction drugs. Critics argue that even the public awareness campaigns are not motivated by the desire to help individuals as well as to educate and inform, but more out of a concern for the bottom line profits of the pharmaceutical industry.

The demand for a female equivalent of Viagra has led to the expression female sexual dysfunction or FSD and one survey shows that nearly fifty percent of all women suffer from it. It goes to say that women who have at some time suffered from some sexual problems are now being led to believe that there is something wrong with them and that are actually suffering from a disorder or a disease. FSD many argue is a typical example of disease mongering by drug companies and does nothing to help people but only reinforces a sense of sexual inadequacy felt by certain women.

Though the big drug firms do not like to admit it, many of the Viagra and Cialis users are not really impotent or even slightly impotent but are just using the drug to make themselves better lovers and to improve their sexual stamina. These drugs are now becoming known as lifestyle improvers and therefore are not really medically required. This could have big implications for private health insurance and the issue has been extensively debated in US Congress and most developed world countries.

The massive awareness campaigns for erectile dysfunction have just led to millions of people being given lifestyle drugs at the taxpayers expense and that it was already likely that those people who were genuine sufferers had already been treated and would pay for the drug personally if the problem was acute. The world biggest drug firm Pfizer deny that they are aiming advertising at young men and men who are just looking for a boost. They argue that all men suffer from ED at some point and that Viagra is the answer to the problem, however the age of users is slowly going down showing that acceptance of Viagra as a fun lifestyle drug is growing.

The line between what is a clinical medical problem and what is a socially acceptable ailment is moving and the pressure on men to perform sexually as a result is growing at an alarming rate.