The head of Merck, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, Henry Gadsden, told Fortune magazine thirty years ago that he wanted Merck to become more like companies like Wrigley chewing gum . He said making drugs for a healthy person has been his dream for years so that Merck could "sell them to everyone." Today, Gadsden's dream has become a reality, and marketing to healthy people is now the driving force behind one of the most profitable industries in the world. Pharmaceutical companies are systematically working to push the very boundaries that define disease, using their dominant belief in the world of medical science. Old conditions are expanded, new ones are created, and drug markets become even larger. Mild problems are redefined as serious illnesses, and common ailments are labeled as medical conditions requiring drug treatments. Common examples of this can be seen when runny nose has become allergic rhinitis, premenstrual syndrome has become a psychiatric disorder, and hyperactive children suffer from attention deficit disorder. These advertisers and marketers are recently labeling people with high cholesterol or low bone density as "at risk" for a disease itself. This book, Selling Sickness: How the World's Biggest Pharmaceutical Companies Are Turning Us All into Patients, shows how the expanding boundaries of disease and the lowering of the threshold for treatments are creating millions of new patients. As a direct result of this, billions of dollars in profits will go to pharmaceutical companies. This change could revolutionize healthcare systems around the world. As more and more daily lives become medical and people's perspectives are distorted, the pharmaceutical industry is moving closer to the concept of "selling to everyone." Selling Sickness reveals the marketing techniques of the world's largest and most powerful pharmaceutical companies. These industries are now aggressively targeting healthy, healthy families and individuals around the world. Promotional campaigns are used to exploit some of man's deepest fears: death, illness and infirmity. The $500 billion pharmaceutical industry is practically changing what it means to be human. Pharmaceutical companies have been rightly rewarded for saving millions of lives and reducing suffering, but this book argues that lines are being crossed as we move from sick to commodity to healthy. people enjoy a healthier and more vital life, intense advertising and "awareness" campaigns are transforming healthy worried people into worried sick people.