Moving the goalposts

Taken from an article I read:
"Many millions of people have been caught in the medical net as definitions of disease have become tougher. Quite literally overnight, 6.7 million American women suddenly had osteoporosis requiring medical treatment when the previous day they were considered borderline healthy.
This shifting goalpost happened when the US National Osteoporosis foundation set a new and tighter definition of the disease. Osteoporisis is determined by the "T score", which measures bone density and is set to zero, based on healthy, premenopauseal women.
The World Health Organization set the T score for osteoporosis at minue 2.5 but the NOF shifted this to minus 2.0, so creaating a new market of six million women who suddenly required drug therapy.
The same happened a decade earlier when medicine tightened up its definition of cardiovascular disease, and in particular blood pressure and cholesterol levels.
A further 42 million people overnight found themselves in line for a statin drug when the 'harmful' levels of cholesterol in the blood was reduced from 240mg to 200mg/dI or over.
Definitions of disease are driven by a desire to catch problems early - and a desire to find more customers for drugs
Many of the regulators who sit on the boards that determine when disease begins have direct links with pharmaceutical companies that stand to benefit from a larger market for their drugs, says medical researcher Ray Moynihan, from Bond University in Queensland, Australia.

What do you think of this report then folks?

Re: Moving the goalposts

I do think that a lot of it is about creating a market for their products. It's why I fervently believe that medication should not be in the market for profit only.

However, with osteoporosis and arthritis, I do remember, a fair few years ago, consultants becoming annoyed with GPs for not referring people to specialist care sooner so that by the time people arrived at the consultant's desk, far too much damage had already occurred for them to repair; maybe it has something to do with as well?

Re: Moving the goalposts

My wife's GP has recently moved practices unfortunately and her new GP is obsessed with saving money, so she is reviewing my wife's medications to see where she can save. My wife has severe osteo-arthritis in knees, hips, hands and shoulders as well as crumbling discs in her neck and painful bursitis. All of these cause constant and acute pain for which she is prescribed large quantities of controlled drugs. Her consultants are amazed at how she manages to remain upbeat and positive given the pain she is in, but her new GP feels that most of the pain is merely psychological and that heavy anti-depressants will sort her out. Where do they find these clueless idiot doctors?

Re: Moving the goalposts

I had the same problem with my thigh injury and it took my GP 18 months to listen - I went privately in the end and the consultant transferred me to his NHS list as he was so miffed at my GPs non-action - that was when she agreed to help but I already had the help I needed. Sadly, for me, the joint built up a lot of cartlidge (I think that's what he called it) as it tried to protect itself and nothing can be done about that so now I have a limited range of walking thanks to my GP. I did ask could it have been fixed, he said yes. I asked why wasn't it and he replied 'because no-one referred you to me'.

Seems saving money takes priority.