Disease mongering conference announced

A while back, the British Medical Journal explored the idea of disease mongering and CME's potential place in it (i.e., Did GlaxoSmithKline “invent” irritable bowel syndrome in part by underwriting CME on the subject?). The idea must have been gathering steam over the past few years, because a new conference on the topic is being launched in Australia in April: the inaugural Conference on Disease-Mongering, to be held in Newcastle New South Wales, Australia on April 11th to 13th 2006. It's unclear whether or not it will explore any CME-related topics.

(Thanks to Health Care Renewal for the pointer.)

Update: From BMJ: Selling sickness: the pharmaceutical industry and disease mongering. Commentary: Medicalisation of risk factors. Moynihan, R., Heath, I., Henry, D., Gotzsche, P. C

BMJ 2002 324: p. 886-891