Former BMJ editor Richard Smith is praising the article on this blog:
Title: Is it the underlying philosophy of medicine that is responsible for a tide of "sickened"? Are the words of medicine worsening public health?
Quotes:
Medicine with its classification of diseases, diagnostic methods, and wide array of treatments will provide not only practical help—perhaps a drug or an operation—but also meaning. I have this pain in my head because of an infection, a hormonal imbalance, or a faulty gene. I need medicine not only to take away my pain but also to provide meaning to my pain.
May this line of thinking explain why the number of people with long-terms sickness in Britain has increased from 1.8 million in 1993 to 2.8 million now, 1.9 million people have long Covid, 2.6 million have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and 172 000 adults and children are on a waiting list for an autism assessment, a 400% increase since 2019? May it explain why antidepressant prescriptions in England have increased from 47.3 million in 2011 to 85.6 million in 2022-23? Almost 9 million adults in England are now prescribed them annually (around a fifth of adults).
Henrik Vogt and Paul Garner have written an important paper in which they argue that medicine is not only providing a meaning to people’s pain but also making it worse.
...
I can’t conclude much with confidence from all this, but I think that I can conclude that responding to the increasing numbers of people with long-term sickness, long Covid, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, and other conditions with more diagnostic labels, tests, and treatments is unlikely to be the best response.
https://richardswsmith.wordpress.co...he-words-of-medicine-worsening-public-health/