Sigmund Freud declared that anatomy is destiny; that one's body determined one's psychological and social characteristics. If he would have lived longer he would have seen that, when it comes to women, anatomy is prosperity. And the prosperers are drugmakers.
Twenty years ago, 61 million prescriptions were written in the United States for treating the "disease" of menopause with hormone replacement therapy (HRT)--enough to treat a third of all women. (Earlier, women were given shock therapy for the same "disease.")
But a huge federal study the next year found that HRT increased the risk of breast cancer by 26 percent, heart attacks by 29 percent, stroke by 41 percent and doubled the risk of blood clots. In a related study published the next year, HRT doubled the risk of dementia and in a different study, the brains of women who were given HRT actually shrunk. Women quit the deadly treatments en masse when the study results came out and cancer rates dramatically fell. Yes, fell.
It is said that "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it"--and the women targeted by a new wave of menopause pathologizing are a case in point: Yes, you are suffering! Yes, you are a victim! Buy these pills and treatments--are the messages they are hearing and believing. Ka-ching.
Unlike the original menopause pathologizing, the current wave has the benefit of direct-to-consumer (DTC) drug advertising which sells hypochondria. As a health reporter, I receive angry messages from people who want to have the advertised diseases: "How dare you imply I am not depressed?" "How dare you imply that I don't have GERD?" After this story, I will no doubt receive messages that say "How dare you imply I am not suffering from menopause?"
Big Pharma has created a nation of people who want to be sick and will obediently ask a doctor about a medication they saw advertised on TV for a disease they have self-diagnosed.
There's Money in Pathologizing Women's Anatomy
Who remembers exposes in the past about doctors removing women's uteruses (hysterectomies) because they needed the money or performing Cesarean sections so they would not be late for their golf game?
That is only the beginning. When the birth control pill debuted in the 1960's it was said it caused 51 biochemical changes including stroke risks and cancer rates from hormonal contraception continue to rise, though unreported. Why are they underreported? Because drugmakers fund news outlets, doctors and medical schools.
A population that will take a drug for 30 years is the drugmakers' wet dream and menopause is their holy grail. (Why would they care about antibiotics, taken for only a few days?) In fact drugmakers invented the term "perimenopause" to sell more drugs just as they invented the term osteopenia to sell more bone drugs.
So, it is no surprise that menopause-as-a-disease is back to monetize a new generation of women who don't remember the first round of sexist, lethal, ageist marketing. An offensive new documentary called the "M Factor" says it is "Shredding the Silence on Menopause." Silence? Silence? Entire journals, magazines and websites are devoted to the menopause "transition" and all its profit possibilities. Even the Our Bodies Ourselves group, once the pinnacle of feminist health care, has embraced menopause as a disease.
Yes, women's anatomy is destiny when-- it comes to profiting off hypochondria. The opportunistic marketing is aided by Big Pharma's "are-you-sure-you're-not-sick?" DTC advertising.
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