Healthy Skepticism Library item: 3917

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Publication type: news

Salleh A.
Couch potatoes are sick, need drugs
Australian Broadcasting Commission 2006 Mar 31
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/health/HealthRepublish_1604867.htm

Keywords:
Disease-Mongering Moynihan

Notes:

Ralph Faggotter’s Comments:

“ Extreme laziness is a medical condition called motivational deficiency disorder (MoDeD), say Australian researchers.”

The diagnosis and treatment of MoDeD may have a familiar ring to it, and that is no coincidence as you will discover if you attend ‘The Inaugural Conference on Disease-Mongering’ which will be hosted by the University of Newcastle, NSW , Australia, on 11-13 April.

Full text:

Couch potatoes are sick, need drugs
Anna Salleh
ABC Science Online

Friday, 31 March 2006

feet up

Extreme laziness is said to affect up to one in five Australians (Image: iStockphoto)

Extreme laziness is a medical condition called motivational deficiency disorder (MoDeD), say Australian researchers.

At least that’s according to a report in the 1 April issue of the British Medical Journal (BMJ).

The condition affects up to one in five Australians and is characterised by overwhelming and debilitating apathy, reports Sydney-based journalist and author Ray Moynihan.

In severe cases it can be fatal because the condition reduces the motivation to breathe, his report adds.

Professor Leth Argos, a neuroscientist at the University of Newcastle, reportedly identified the new disorder.

It’s diagnosed using a combination of positron emission tomography and low scores on a motivation rating scale, previously validated in elite athletes.

Drug available to treat condition
Argos has also been advising a small Australian biotechnology company called Healthtec, which has had promising trial results of the new drug indolebant, designed to help people with the condition, reports Moynihan.

“One young man who could not leave his sofa is now working as an investment adviser in Sydney,” Argos told the BMJ.

Moynihan reports MoDeD costs the Australian economy around A$2.4 billion (US$1.7 billion) a year in lost productivity, a fact that has prompted industry and advocacy groups to fast-track indolebant’s regulatory assessment.

But Moynihan also warns that some researchers, such as Professor David Henry of the University of Newcastle, are concerned that ordinary laziness is being medicalised.

While some extreme sufferers of MoDeD may benefit from indolebant, common laziness is not a disease, says Henry, a long-time critic of pharmaceutical marketing strategies.

Some people might have a genuinely debilitating form of MoDeD but others are just plain lazy and have “an absolute right to just sit there”, he says.

Henry has organised a conference to highlight what he calls “disease mongering” and MoDeD will be one of the conditions discussed there as part of an “educational exercise”.

Reclusive researcher
ABC Science Online was unable to reach Professor Leth Argos or find him listed on the University of Newcastle website.

But it secured an interview with Moynihan, who, as it turns out, is also involved in organising the conference on disease mongering.

Moynihan described Argos as “reclusive” but “utterly brilliant”.

“He cured me,” says Moynihan, reluctantly acknowledging that he once suffered from MoDeD but has “gotten much better” since participating in the indolebant trial.

Despite his miraculous recovery from the disease, Moynihan is critical of the role of Healthtec’s promotion of MoDeD and what he calls the “corporate-sponsored creation of illness”.

“[Healthtec has] hired a large global PR company to develop a secret marketing campaign to convince everyone that laziness is a disease and that’s problematic,” says Moynihan.

Real suffering
But, he says, as his own experience shows, this does not mean there are not some “legitimate sufferers” of MoDeD who have real hardship and suffering.

“In almost any condition you take there are people at the severe end of the spectrum who benefit greatly from a medical label and from therapy including medication,” he says.

And he invites all parties to openly debate the issue of disease mongering in the interest of public health.

“I think that people who react negatively to this debate about disease mongering do a disservice to the genuinely ill,” he says.

The Inaugural Conference on Disease-Mongering will be hosted by the University of Newcastle on 11-13 April.
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