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Pharmanoia is a term coined by science writer Jon Cohen in a 2006 article written for Slate that describes an extreme distrust of pharmaceutical companies, the drugs they produce and the research used to produce them.[1] For Wikipedia, pharmanoia is the belief that pharmaceutical companies represent an all-powerful, profit-oriented entity that either directly controls, or works with government regulatory agencies to the detriment of the general consumer. Pharmanoia is generally expressed in the idea that Big PharmaTM is either actively suppressing a variety of cheap, effective cures for nearly all diseases, or is actively working to suppress research on such cures. The motivation ascribed is usually that Big PharmaTM wishes to keep people sick with chronic conditions in order to keep selling drugs, or that expensive drugs are much more profitable than the alternative, presumably equally safe and effective natural cures that exist. Generally pharmanoia occurs when an editor attempts to use conflict of interest and other spurious objections to justify removing a reference, eliminate criticisms or otherwise promote the idea that alternative medicine has more to offer the world than medicine.
Most Americans love a good conspiracy theory that neatly explains all suffering as caused by a monolithic, faceless block rather than the fact that reality is complicated and not easily amendable to the understanding of Joe Plumber and John Q. Public. There is a strong trend of antiscience in the modern world, which features beliefs like:
- science is just another way of knowing that is no better than (say) the revealed truth of religion or the inherited wisdom of ancestors.
- science creates more problems than it solves
- science can be wrong at times, or produces findings which are contradictory, which invalidates the entire process
- scientists disagree, therefore there is no "truth" in the process
- the products and processes of science are too complicated to have any impact on the lives of average citizens
- ^ Cohen, J (2006-02-21). "Pharmanoia: Coming to a clinical trial near you". Slate. Retrieved 2009-11-02.