The claim
The article from the Ärzteblatt suggests that pharmaceutical companies aim to make healthy people sick.
Our conclusion
This claim is false. The author of the article discusses a false understanding of health and not the practices of pharmaceutical companies.
In times when many people are sick and looking for healing, we are all particularly vigilant. Some believe that big pharmaceutical companies just want to make money and are not really interested in making us healthy. An old article from the “Deutsche Ärzteblatt” from 2002, which is now circulating on the Internet again (we already reported 2020 ), is intended to prove this suspicion. Some sentences on the screenshot have been highlighted in yellow! But, is this really the truth?
Fact check: Misunderstood Ärzteblatt article
In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, an older article from the “Deutsches Ärzteblatt” spread on social networks. The shared statements suggest that the pharmaceutical industry aims to make healthy people sick. But what is behind these claims?
Claim: The article in the Ärzteblatt states that pharmaceutical companies intentionally want to make people sick.
Verification: The original article was written by Klaus Dörner, a renowned German psychiatrist. The controversial passage, which claims that the competition aims to turn all healthy people into sick people, has been taken out of context.
In fact, Dörner speaks in his article about the dangers of a false understanding of health. He argues that people are often tricked into believing they are not healthy when in fact they are. Dörner's main focus is on the psychological effects of this belief, not on physical illnesses or the intent of pharmaceutical companies to make people sick.
Verdict: False
The claim that the article in the Ärzteblatt states that pharmaceutical companies intentionally want to make people sick is false. The context of the original article shows that Dörner conducts an analysis of the understanding of health and illness and warns of the dangers of a false understanding of health. He is not interested in criticizing the practices of pharmaceutical companies. It is therefore misleading to use the article as evidence for such claims.
In detail:
What does the Ärzteblatt article really say?
The article, which can currently be found all over the Internet, was written by Klaus Dörner, a well-known German psychiatrist. Some people particularly share one passage from the article: “Competition forces the development of new markets. The goal must be to convert all healthy people into sick people.” Of course, that sounds pretty scary. But what did the author really mean by that?
In truth, Dörner did not claim in his article that companies are intentionally trying to make us sick. Rather, he was saying that the way we think about health and illness is sometimes problematic. He believes that too often we allow ourselves to be told that we are sick when we are actually healthy.
What does the author mean by “health”?
Dörner believes that you only feel truly healthy if you don't constantly think about whether you are healthy or not. He believes that the more you try to stay healthy, the sicker you feel. He warns that we think we can simply buy or plan health.
What does this have to do with the pharmaceutical industry?
Dörner says there are many things that can give us a false picture of health. One of these factors is competition between companies that always want to open up new markets. This can lead to them trying to make us believe that we are sick and need their products to get well.
But be careful: This does not mean that Dörner claimed that pharmaceutical companies intentionally want to make us sick. In his article he mainly talked about psychological problems and said nothing about viral diseases like Corona.
Conclusion: Always look closely! It is important that we always look closely and not just believe everything we find on the internet. Experts who know about such things read Dörner's article long ago and declared that it was misunderstood. As always, it is important to examine information critically and rely on reputable sources. This is the only way to counteract misinformation and form an informed opinion.
Sources
Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )