Selling madness: psychopharmaceutical companies in Lithuania, 1990-2000
LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Farmacijos kompanijos; Psichikos sveikata; Psichinė sveikata; Vaistai; Lithuania; Medications; Mental health; Pharmaceutical companies.
ENThe breakup of the Soviet Union has created enormous tensions, both economic and cultural, for its former member states. Once under the watchful and guiding eye of the Soviet Union, the former republics suddenly had to determine how to react to an increasingly integrated global economy. Lithuania, since its reestablishment of independence in 1991, has been torn between the legacy of Communist influence from the East, and cultural and economic pressures from the West. As I will show, Western influences have led to major changes in Lithuanian mental health. Lithuania has experienced a sharp increase in certain types of mental illness between 1997 and 1998, as indicated in Table 1. The question driving this research is why rates of mental illness in Lithuania have increased so rapidly in the 1990s in light of the rising influence of Western pharmaceutical companies. These firms expanded their marketing strategies in Lithuania, since it became an untapped market after the fall of the Soviet Union. Using both formal and informal means, the pharmaceutical industry influences the diagnosis of various types of mental illness treated by medications sold by these same pharmaceutical companies. While other scholars have stressed the role of the interaction process between individuals, this research contributes to the debate of the social construction of mental illness by emphasizing the macroeconomic sources of the diagnosis of mental illness. [From Introduction]
