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Regardless of what you call your political system.
The imagined illness
Translated from Torben Weper: "Den indbildte syge",
Samvirke, February 2006
Once the medical industry was working on developing medication against diseases. Today the industry also develop diseases for healthy people.
1998 was Sisi-year. The entire Central Europe celebrated empress Elisabeth of Austria who was in 1898 murdered by an italian anarchist. Elisabeth - who had the nick name Sisi - is a cult figure in the german speaking countries.
Her beauty was legendary, her private poems were full of pain. Although Sisi was married to one of the most powerful men in the world, the Austrian-hungarian emperor Franz-Josef I, and lived in the absolute upper class of her time, she was unhappy. Her entire adult life she was suffering from eating disorders and was manically obsessed with her appearence. Just caring for her knee long hair took an hour each day.
conditions are marketed as illnesses
requiring treatment."
At the age of 16 she had married Franz-Josef. It was love at first sight, but soon emotions cooled. The young prince was completely subdued by his mother, arch duchess Sophie, and soon the young bride too had been subdued by the mother in law.
Empress Sisi went into an internal exile. She withdrew more and more from her husband and in stead threw herself at steady bodily exercise. All emperial palaces had workout rooms installed. She did a lot of horseback riding, travelled a lot, and her walks in the mountains could last as long as 10 hours.
Sisi was very unhappy - Of this there is no doubt in the many biographies printed in the year of her anniversary. However, one of the books from 1998 differed from the rest in that it did not only describe her sad life of luxury, but furthermore evaluated her as being sick.
The writer, science journalist and dr.med. Barbara Voll, believed that the empress suffered from a special kind of depression which she named "the Sisi-Syndrome".
Symptomatic for this depression is that the patient refuse to show it; outwards she appear strong and happy, but she is feeling restless and lacks selfesteem. She atempt to level her mental inbalance by not eating, and by exercise and beauty care. If these symptoms appear modern, it is no coincidence. The austrian empress may be considered the forerunner of many women of the present day, who is materially well off, but who suffers in silence.
A HITHERTO UNKNOWN ILLNESS. The discovery of the Sisi-syndrome caused great attention in germany - not least because of the aniversary year. Newspapers, tabloids, television, and radio, dealt in detail with the illness which was aparently very common.
"In all about three milion people in Germany suffers from the Sisi-syndrome," estimated psychology professor Hans-Ulrich Wittchen from the well established Max Planck institute of Munich.
And he warned that males could not feel safe from this illness either. Fortunately help was near. At the same time as the appearance of the syndrome, the pharmaceutical company SmithKline Beecham (now GlaxoSmithKline) presented a drug against it: An antidepressiva by the name of Seroxat.
"Patients suffering from the Sisi-syndrome can be helped," told dr.med. and diploma psychologist Reinhard Joachim Boerner of the university of Munich, refering to "numerous experiments" showing that six weeks of treatment with Seroxat provides clear improvements of the mental state of the patient. A much better result than shown by psychotherapy.
During the following years several conferences and workshops were held about the syndrome which soon found its place on the list of depressions requiring treatment.
Noone found it remarkable that the illness and the cure were found at the same time.
Not until 2003 researchers of the university of Münster published a critical examination of the syndrome.
"It is our evaluation that it is not a recognized illness," explained psychiatrist Markus Burgmer, who was in charge of the investigation.
"First, it is not internationally established at all. The Sisi-syndrome only exist in the german speaking area. And secondly this syndrome is not scientifically founded at all."
And Sisi? She propably suffered a completely ordinary anorexia.
THE FAKE ILLNESS. "This illness was developed by a conference table and named after the austrian empress Sisi. The illness only exist in Germany, Austria, and Schwitzerland, because Sisi is only known in the german speaking part of the world," concludes the science journalist Jörg Blech from the german news magasine Der Spiegel.
Last year he gathered his knowledge of the invented illnesses of the pharmaceutical industry in the book Die Krankheitserfinder (The inventors of illnesses). Among the many invented illnesses the Sisi-syndrome is an excellent example of the inventiveness of the pharmaceutical industry, he thinks.
"They wish to increase sales, and for that purpose they need a woman everybody knows. This woman is then equipped with an illness so that a whole lot of people in the western world gets it too."
After the invention of the Sisi-syndrome followed the most important step, the marketing. Patients had to be created, who recognized the symptoms within themselves. And for that purpose SmithKline worked closely with the german pr-bureau Wedopress, whome according to their own claim have 30 years of experience in advicing the pharmaceutical industry.
"We generate news in different ways and ensure you a continuous, lasting presence in the media: target group oriented, efficient and sales increasing," is the promise of Wedopress in an advertising text on their webpage on the internet.
Wedopress used, until this year exactly Sisi as an example of their exraordinary results, when it comes to launch new medications onto the market. Wedopress were not ashamed of the uncovery of the fake illness, quite the contrary the bureau gave a confident insight into the succesful campaign.
One of the problems about the introduction was that depressions are a taboo subject in Germany, Wedopress explained.
This taboo was to be surmounted by a new five points strategy:
"The introduction of a new depression. A depression it is legitimate to speak of: The Sisi-syndrome. Make the psyche conceiveable. The way to the doctor. Referance to the medical product."
In order to get the three million german women lured to the doctor and on to the pharmacy, a book was to be published and a media "wildfire" created, Wedopress predicted in their strategic presentation.
NO TO LADY DI SYNDROME. The book of the Sisi-syndrome was created by the compagny Ariadne, who normally make their living off offering german book publishers pre-written non-fictional books ready for printing. Wedopress had 30.000 books printed for distribution among psychologists and psychiatrists.
The professional gravity came from a handful of naive or bought experts, who for a fee made introductory speeches at seminars and workshops.
"Many doctors advertize for the industry. A doctor who participate on a conference and tells the journalists of a disease, receives from appr. 20.000 kr. [appr. 2.700 Euros] and up," says Jörg Blech, who approximate that the fee for a scientific Sisi-presentation can be as much as 375.000 kr. [appr. 50.000 Euros].
On the internet the syndrome got its own homepage, www.sisi-syndrom.de, where the soul-aches of emperess Sisi are interwoven with the modern treatment options.
established in the minds of the
population it is hard to excorcise."
And the wildfire Wedopress were betting on, were lit by the journalists themselve. Critiquelessly they let themselves be enchanted by the good story of the many women who suffers the ailment of the famous Sisi. The naive press did not wonder why the syndrome only strikes german speaking women. Such wondering would automatically have lead to the question of wether the syndrome ought not be named after Lady Di, who experienced similar trouble in her life.
Diana would at the same time have ensured the syndrome a much wider distribution.
"Originally it was the intent to call the illness Lady Di-syndrome, but the englishmen rejected that because she had only been dead for a year," says Jörg Blech.
They decided on Sisi and made do with Germany, Austria, and Schwizerland as their market. Acording to Wedopres the media campaign resulted in 533 articles with a total edition of 143 million.
Strictly statistically each and every german speaking woman has in other words encountered three articles about the syndrome. Add to that the continuous mentioning in the electronic media.
THE FAKE MENOPAUSE. The Sisi-syndrome is neither the first nor the last example of an illness which the medical compagnies are trying to convince healthy people that they have.
The phenomenon is called disease mongering; aided by the media ordinary human conditions are marketed as illnesses requiring treatment. Among the most succesful campaigns is the introduction of the menopause of women. Even though the mean lifespan of women is several years longer than that of men - and women must thus be more healthy than men - about one in three women in the western world is being medicated with female hormone once she reaches the menopause. The treatment is among other things supposed to prevent biologically conditioned mood swings and hot flushes, but peculiarly the menopause is not known to women in japan...
The public discovery of the menopause occured in 1966, when an american researcher published a book on the phenomenon. The fact that he was working for a pharmaceutical compagny was not told.
The success with the women is now atempted transfered to the men who are also attributed a menopause, the aging male syndrome, where the content of testosterone in the blood is receeding, and the muscle mass is reducing. As treatment several medical compagnies are offering hormonal products.
The fact that the phenomenon is simply due to natural aging is not mentioned, neither the fact that the hormonal treatment increases the risk of cancer.
The cases of pharmaceutical industrial inventiveness will all in all considered continue, because the compagnies wish to continue the great growth of recent years. In order to increase sales the number of customers must increase too - the healthy majority is to be made patients.
An example: The nort european pensioneers, moving to the sunny coast of Spain to enjoy their otium are actually not happy; underneath their smiles lurks an unacknowledged "paradise depression" which fortunately happens to be treatable.
MORE NEW ILLNESSES TO COME. When the medical industry atempt to market a new illness, it often happens in cooperation with a patient organization, which partly constitutes "an evidence" of the illness, and partly represents a group of pression towards the politicians who are to allow public support for the treatment.
Some years ago the weekly newsletter Monday Morning reveal that the danish osteoporose organization were receiving financial support from several pharmaceutical compagnies. That way producer and patient allied against an independent professional knowledge unwilling to agree that osteoporosis should be a common illness.
During the last years time the pharmaceutical compagny Pfizer has atempted to create interest for two new common illnesses in Denmark: Potency problems and incontinese. Using adds in different magazines, the viagra producer establishes that "many men has erection problems", and that "more than one in five dane suffers from involuntary urination".
The adds are not aimed at selling a treatmen, but rather they are trying to sell illnesses.
With a coupon one can get "free information", and Pfizer even promise to mail their potency informations in a "neutral envelope".
The two advertizers refer to each their homepage, accounting in detail for the illnesses. Only far down in the text Pfizer gets into the medical options offered by the compagny.
From the viagra text is among other things stated that more than each second male has potency problems. Acording to experts the number is wildly exagerated. Which is perhaps why Pfizer's competitors with regard to potency, Bayer and GlaxoSmithKline, set their potential group of patients to 20 percent.
Experience shows that once a common illness has been established in the minds of the population it is hard to excorcise. Although the Sisi-syndrome has long been rejected as an illnes, it still lives and thrives, eg. on its own homepage. "We are living in abundance, also medically. That means that illnesses are made bigger or are invented," explains Jörg Blech.
The doctor no longer treats sick people, but people who by the media have had it hammered into their heads that there exist new common illnesses."
Among the next illness inventions of the pharmaceutical industry he expects Viagra for women and a drug against the indignation syndrome.
In the context of self fulfilling stigmatization and nazi style persecution see this example