Like it or not, the doctor will see you now.
As it has become customary to complain about the politicization of science under the Bush administration, I figured now might be a time to raise a red flag on a converse problem–the medicalization of politics.
A major study released today has found that obesity is contagious. It’s possible that I’m jumping the gun here, but it seems to me that the groundwork is being laid here for federal policy intervention against this “epidemic disease”. If the past is prologue, we can expect these interventions to manifest themselves in reduced choices and higher prices.
There seems to be a real trend underway to “medicalize” social problems through the declaration of such things as genocide and gun violence as “public health crises.” This winds up being a way in which social control is expanded into areas in which the public would not otherwise welcome it. I don’t know that this is wise from a medical perspective–once people come to identify medical therapy as an unwelcome intruder rather than a desirable service, they may seek it less often.