Originally Published in Madras Courier
Editorial Note
Pharma companies are ruining your health for profit. Here’s how.
Ray Moynihan, a healthcare journalist and documentary film maker, disillusioned with the gnawing problem of “too much medicine,” devised a satirical project with colleagues at the British Medical Journal (BMJ). Together, they invented a fictional disease termed “Motivational Deficiency Disorder,” accompanied by a marketing campaign branding it as “The New Epidemic.” It was a flippant attempt to reframe the everyday experience of laziness as a medical disorder requiring clinical intervention and pharmacological treatment.