Name(s):
Politically motivated diagnostic labelling
Unwarranted disease specification
Nature
Medical problems are taken seriously by the public. Thus if one wishes for political or other reasons to draw attention to, receive funding for work on, or eradicate a problem, it may be useful to give the problem medical status or a medical label. Those whose lives are caught up with the problem, including students of it, may be unwittingly biased toward giving it a high status label.