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The Business of Disease
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The Business of Disease
Marketing's Role in Shaping Beliefs and Demands
The show 'The Business of Disease' is based on the idea that marketing targets both
consumers and doctors and enshrines their notions and expectations of diseases and treatments.
The movie primarily highlights the process of selling and purchasing medical products and
equipment, which can lead to drug and device addiction. Such campaigns aid in raising public
awareness and potentially motivate individuals to seek treatment for yet-to-be-discovered
diseases. Therefore, these campaigns emphasize their benefits, conceal any potential drawbacks,
and thereby stimulate the demand for purchasing medications and therapies (The Business of
Disease Documentary, 2016). They also describe how such campaigns use appeals to fear and
anxiety as a strategy for modifying the behavior of the target population. This modifies the
societal perception of health, as alterations in the body are perceived as diseases that require
medical intervention. Furthermore, the aforementioned marketing strategies have the potential to
mask non-medical solutions such as maintaining a healthy lifestyle and undergoing regular
health check-ups, which could potentially yield higher profits for business owners. Implemented,
it alters the nature of healthcare to the negative of the patients and the positive of the cost being
dictated by wastage of medical commodities and service delivery.
The drug industry employs several strategies, such as providing drug samples to doctors,
sponsoring local and international meetings, and offering incentives, to compel doctors to
prescribe their drugs. These tactics ensure that there is conformity between the health
practitioners and the drug company representatives, thus addressing medical decisions. They
assist the doctors in offering short-term prescriptions that may have long-term effects on the
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sampled drugs that the patient may be taking. Sponsoring medical conferences and continuing
education also introduces new products, making them more believable to users.
Other inducements, including research grants, consultant revenue, and costly gifts, also influence
doctors’ prescribing habits. This raises the possibility of bias in the choice of medications for
children, with an emphasis on new, expensive medications rather than effective older ones (The
Business of Disease Documentary, 2016). Marketing strategies drive this demand negatively,
leading to an increase in health costs, the medicalization of society, and a shift toward less
comprehensive and preventive forms of healthcare. Healthcare costs rise, which can shift the
focus of doctors and medical facilities towards more profitable treatments.
Alternative Models for Understanding Health
The documentary also faces various paradigms concerning the health and healing abilities
of the human body. The first type of model integrates the physical, psychological, and social
dimensions of wellness. They believe that natural and nonmedical methods, such as a balanced
diet and nutrition, exercise, stress management, and homeopathy, should address and treat health
issues. If there are adjustments to the lifestyle and other aspects of the environment, then people
are likely to have better health and lower chances of developing chronic diseases. Patient
education and self-management support are two other integrated models. This helps the patients
gain enough knowledge about their bodies to make the right decisions and live healthy lives.
Thus, we use methods like mindfulness, meditation, and other practices, expecting patients to
take greater responsibility for themselves and shift the overall tone to a more positive one.
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These models may offer several benefits from an economic point of view, as they could
reduce expenditures related to health issues and the need to cure diseases. They criticize the
mainstream medical industry for prioritizing profits from product sales over promoting healthy
lifestyles among the public (The Business of Disease Documentary, 2016). These hygiene
models aim to make healthcare delivery sustainable and patient-centered, promoting healthier
populations and more efficient use of funds. However, such a scale would necessitate a change in
the system, in the form of policies and curricula, right down to the culture of health and
medicine.
These accepted holistic medical practices can have economic benefits because they
embrace preventive measures and natural healing rather than costly surgeries and drugs.
Education on healthy living practices, such as maintaining a balanced diet, engaging in regular
exercise, and managing stress, not only reduces the occurrence of diseases like diabetes, heart
illnesses, and obesity, but also reduces the need for costly medical treatments and drugs. These
include self-care and patient education, which will encourage the development of a healthy
population with fewer cases of chronic diseases that cause long-term expenses. In this case, the
patient's involvement in managing his or her health can reduce the need for treatments while
improving the quality and economic value of their lives.
However, those models could have some problems concerning funds and implementation.
As a result, the funding for health promotion campaigns, community-based interventions for
disease prevention, and preparatory activities for service providers needs to be more robust. It
requires a significant amount of time and effort to shift the community from relying on
medications and drugs for disease prevention to alternative self-care methods, which may
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involve the use of natural products (The Business of Disease Documentary, 2016). In addition,
the current healthcare systems, which are disease-centered and focused more on treatment than
disease prevention, would require change to accommodate these new ideas. Another problem is
gaining the approval of the stakeholders who rely on the current medical approach, known as
pharmaceutics, and some medical staff members. Though trying to improve these other models
means a probability of improving people's health and decreasing costs, it is a worthy attempt to
study and develop these models.
Characterization of the Current Healthcare System
To a large extent, the film focuses on explaining the modern structure of healthcare
management as a commodity rather than a service. The pharmaceutical and medical device
industries, where most companies operate for profit, reinforce this characterization. As the
documentary demonstrates, people are willing to go to great lengths to earn some cash, a factor
that may occasionally take precedence over the primary goal of healing patients. This entails
encouraging the expensive 'blockbusters,' which, although they provide high returns, are not
necessarily better than existing cures, while also encouraging the treatment of profitable diseases
rather than needed diseases.
Turning to the business aspect of the healthcare sector has both benefits and drawbacks.
On the positive side, the profit motivation can encourage the development of remedies and
treatments, as well as increased technologies. At the same time, it can become the impetus for
the introduction of new investments and resources into the system, which, in turn, can improve
the overall condition of the healthcare system (The Business of Disease Documentary, 2016). On
the negative side, this could potentially exacerbate existing inequalities in healthcare
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provisioning, as only those firms able to acquire the most advanced technologies stand to benefit,
leaving the remaining firms to continue their operations as usual. Furthermore, the pursuit of
increasing profit margins through spending growth may result in underinvestment in growth
drivers that are not high-return healthcare sectors, such as primary prevention and treatment of
rare diseases.
"The Business of Disease" offers a critical view of the current state of health care by
examining the marketing aspects of medical realities, the presentation of the possible new
paradigms of health care delivery, and the consequences of the argument that the health care
industry should be considered a business. As a result, the documentary demonstrates that
appealing to demand can lead to overdiagnosis of diseases and continuous increases in healthcare
costs. While the business model is capable of promoting innovation and attracting investment for
the creation of new treatments and other technologies, it presents some significant challenges in
terms of equity and access to health. This self-serving model can lead to inequitable care
distributions, neglecting critical illnesses in favor of services that yield higher profits. This
orientation leads to a dismal allocation of resources for disease control and prevention,
exacerbates the marginalization of specific population groups, and paints a bleak picture of the
future of healthcare. The film concludes by urging society to reconsider the establishment of an
ethical healthcare vision to foster further advancement that includes rationality and equity.
