New Disease: Dysphoric Social Attention Consumption Deficit Anxiety Disorder

This new disease is somewhere in between attention deficit disorder, depression and anxiety disorder. It is only treatable with Havidol. This drug has side-effects:

Side effects may include mood changes, muscle strain, extraordinary thinking, dermal gloss, impulsivity induced consumption, excessive salivation, hair growth, markedly delayed sexual climax, inter-species communication, taste perversion, terminal smile, and oral inflammation. Very rarely users may experience a need to change physicians.

The disease as well as the drug (Have it all) are fake.

Australian artist Justine Cooper created the marketing campaign for a non-existent drug called Havidol for Dysphoric Social Attention Consumption Deficit Anxiety Disorder (DSACDAD), which she also invented.

From Reuters interview with the artist:Fake drug, fake illness

“The thing that amazes me is that it has been folded into real Web sites for panic and anxiety disorder. It’s been folded into a Web site for depression. It’s been folded into hundreds of art blogs,” he added.

The parody is in response to the tactics used by the drug industry to sell their wares to the public. Consumer advertising for prescription medications, which are a staple of television advertising in the United States, was legalized in the country in 1997.

Now why should I write a post about it? For two simple reasons:

• It warns again for so called diseases that don’t exist but appeal to people by the way they are marketed. Take Internet addiction for one
• I am against direct-to-consumer-advertising for medication