Australian Left Review
Article Title
Medical manipulation for social control and profit
Abstract
Medicine practices under the benevolent banner of treating the sick, but this becomes malevolent when it is the medical profession itself which decides what is ‘sick’ and what is ‘not sick’, as it does in psychiatry or psychological medicine. Its involvement in the treatment of the so-called ‘socially deviant’ represents a potent form of social control. “We give major tranquillisers to try to manipulate the patients to get them as near to normal as possible” , said a neurologist from the Prince Henry’s Hospital. Of course, he thinks that he is doing a good thing, but what does he mean by ‘normal’?
This paper has been withdrawn.