The Justice

Prof. Peter Conrad (SOC) discusses what's wrong with the medical field today. Julian Agin-Liebes/the Justice

Prof. Peter Conrad (SOC) described and then questioned a national trend toward increased medical diagnoses at a speech in the Shapiro Campus Center Multipurpose Room Wednesday. Conrad, who chairs the Health, Science, Society and Policy program, outlined arguments made in his new book, The Medicalization of Society: On the Transformation of Human Conditions into Treatable Disorders, as part of the Meet the Author series.

In its quest to attain and define human normality, Conrad said, society is submitting people to "cures" they don't really need, a concept he described as a "pill for every ill."

Conrad told an audience of about 30 that there is an ongoing debate on whether society is creating problems or is just getting better at finding them. He noted that seven percent of American youth have been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder, compared to just 1.5 percent of youth from the United Kingdom.

"We have simply created more medical categories," he said. "And there are problems with [that]."

Tracing the origins of "medicalization" to before the 19th century, Conrad said doctors are now "gatekeepers" who now play a reduced role in the diagnostic process and who must merely prescribe solutions to ailments patients think they have.

He explained that he has been interested in medicalization since his dissertation in 1976 on the "medicalization of deviant behavior."

He cited epilepsy as an example of a condition that has recently been "medicalized." He said that it was originally thought to be possession or witchcraft, but is now a medically treatable disorder.

Conrad attributed the growth of "medicalization" in part to the pharmaceutical industry's efforts to market its products.

The pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, for instance, advertised Paxil as an anti-anxiety drug to treat shyness, Conrad said. He argued that shyness is a normal human emotion that doesn't warrant the use of drugs.

Olivia Mell '09 said she agreed with Conrad's assessment of the problem of increasing diagnoses.

"I'm just glad to have reassurance that I am not crazy. The world is overmedicalized, and there is not a pill for every ill," she said.

Conrad's speech was part of the Meet the Author lecture series organized by the Office of Communications.

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