Editing Medicalization (section)

== Professionals, patients, corporations and society ==
[[Image:Relación Médico Paciente.png|thumb|right|Conversation between doctor and patient]]Several decades on the definition of medicalization is complicated, if for no other reason than because the term is so widely used. Many contemporary critics position pharmaceutical companies in the space once held by doctors as the supposed [[catalysts]] of medicalization. Titles such as "The making of a disease"<ref name="Moynihan 2003 p.">{{cite journal | last=Moynihan | first=Ray | title=The making of a disease: female sexual dysfunction | journal=BMJ: British Medical Journal | volume=326 | issue=7379 | date=2003-01-04 | pages=45–47 | pmid=12511464 | doi=10.1136/bmj.326.7379.45 | pmc=1124933 }}</ref> or "Sex, drugs, and marketing"<ref name="Mason 2003 pp. 7–7">{{cite journal | last=Mason | first=Diana J. | title=Editorial: Sex, Drugs, and Marketing | journal=The American Journal of Nursing | publisher=Lippincott Williams & Wilkins | volume=103 | issue=6 | year=2003 | issn=1538-7488 | jstor=29745103 | pages=7 | doi=10.1097/00000446-200306000-00001 | pmid=12802146 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/29745103 | access-date=2022-03-10| url-access=subscription }}</ref> critique the [[pharmaceutical industry]] for shunting everyday problems into the domain of professional [[biomedicine]]. At the same time, others reject as implausible any suggestion that society rejects [[drugs]] or drug companies and highlight that the same drugs that are allegedly used to treat [[deviance (sociology)|deviance]]s from [[societal norms]] also help many people live their lives. Even scholars who critique the societal implications of brand-name drugs generally remain open to these drugs' curative effects – a far cry from earlier calls for a revolution against the biomedical establishment. The emphasis in many quarters has come to be on "overmedicalization" rather than "medicalization" in itself.

Others, however, argue that in practice the process of medicalization tends to strip subjects of their social context, so they come to be understood in terms of the prevailing biomedical [[ideology]], resulting in a disregard for overarching social causes such as unequal distribution of power and resources.<ref>{{cite journal | pmid = 15210098 | doi=10.1016/j.socscimed.2004.01.003 | volume=59 | issue=6 | title=The medical text: between biomedicine and hegemony |date=September 2004 | author=Filc D | journal=Soc Sci Med | pages=1275–85}}</ref> A series of publications by [[Mens Sana Monographs]] have focused on medicine as a [[corporate]] capitalist enterprise.<ref>Ajai R Singh, Shakuntala A Singh, 2005, [http://www.msmonographs.org/article.asp?issn=0973-1229;year=2005;volume=3;issue=2;spage=19;epage=51;aulast=Singh "Medicine as a corporate enterprise, patient welfare centered profession, or patient welfare centered professional enterprise?"] Mens Sana Monographs, 3(2), p19-51</ref><ref>Ajai R Singh, Shakuntala A Singh, 2005, [http://www.msmonographs.org/article.asp?issn=0973-1229;year=2005;volume=3;issue=1;spage=5;epage=35;aulast=Singh "The connection between academia and industry"], Mens Sana Monographs, 3(1), p5-35</ref><ref>Ajai R Singh, Shakuntala A Singh, 2005, [http://www.msmonographs.org/article.asp?issn=0973-1229;year=2005;volume=3;issue=1;spage=41;epage=80;aulast=Singh "Public welfare agenda or corporate research agenda?"], Mens Sana Monographs, 3(1), p41-80.</ref>

Scholars argue that in the late 20th century transformation within the health sector in the US altered the relationship between people in the healthcare sector.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/1198989810 |title=The Wiley Blackwell companion to medical sociology |date=2021 |others=William C. Cockerham |isbn=978-1-119-63380-8 |location=Hoboken, NJ |oclc=1198989810}}</ref>{{Rp|page=497}} This has been attributed to the commodification of healthcare and the role of parties other than doctors such as insurance companies, the pharmaceutical industry, and the government, referred to collectively as countervailing powers.<ref name=":0" />{{Rp|page=499}} The doctor remains an authority figure who [[prescribes]] pharmaceuticals to [[patient]]s. However, in some countries, such as the US, ubiquitous [[direct-to-consumer advertising]] encourages patients to ask for particular drugs by name, thereby creating a conversation between consumer and drug company that threatens to cut the doctor out of the loop. Additionally, there is a widespread concern regarding the extent of the [[pharmaceutical marketing]] direct to doctors and other healthcare professionals. Examples of this direct marketing are visits by salespeople, funding of journals, training courses or conferences, incentives for prescribing, and the routine provision of "information" written by the pharmaceutical company. The role of patients in this economy has also changed. Once regarded as passive victims of medicalization, patients can now occupy active positions as [[advocates]], [[consumer]]s, or even agents of change.

In response to theory based on medicalisation being insufficient to explain social processes, some scholars have developed a concept of ''biomedicalization'' which argues that technical and scientific interventions are transforming medicine. One aspect is ''pharmaceuticalization'', the influence of the use of [[Pharmaceutical drug|pharmaceutical drugs]] rather than other interventions. Other components are computerization of parts of healthcare such as public health, the creation of a "biopolitical economy" of private research outside of state, the perception of health as a moral obligation.<ref>{{Citation |last=Clarke |first=Adele E. |title=Biomedicalization |date=2014-02-21 |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9781118410868.wbehibs083 |encyclopedia=The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Health, Illness, Behavior, and Society |pages=137–142 |editor-last=Cockerham |editor-first=William C |place=Chichester, UK |publisher=John Wiley & Sons, Ltd |language=en |doi=10.1002/9781118410868.wbehibs083 |isbn=978-1-118-41086-8 |access-date=2022-09-23 |editor2-last=Dingwall |editor2-first=Robert |editor3-last=Quah |editor3-first=Stella|url-access=subscription }}</ref>

Medicalization has brought health issues to the fore, so people think more and more about things in terms of health and act to promote health. When it comes to health issues, medicine is not the only provider of answers, but there have always been alternatives and competitors. At the same time as medicalization, "paramedicalization" has strengthened: also many treatments for which there is no medical basis, at least for now, are popular and commercially successful.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Paramedicalization |editor-last=Surhone |editor-first=Lambert M |place=Tallinn |publisher= VLC Publishing| year=2010 |language=en |isbn= 978-613-3-08893-1|editor2-last=Tennoe |editor2-first=Mariam T |editor3-last=Henssonow |editor3-first=Susan F}}</ref>