We have new pharmaceuticals being introduced every year for fictitious and nonsensical diagnoses such as Mathematics Disorder, Intermittent Explosive Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Orthorexia Nervosa (healthy eating) and so many other inventions called diseases for the sole purpose of selling more drugs. In what many critics are calling lunacy of unimaginable proportions, The World Health Organization (WHO) now plans to lay down the framework that will set the precedent for classifying aging, something that should be embraced and celebrated, into a disease with elaborate protocols expected to be finalized in 2018.
Most people in modern times have been somewhat unanimous that wrinkles, grief and homosexuality are not diseases, although not if you ask the WHO, all of the above may soon be classified as a disease given enough time.
What is considered to be normal and what is considered to be diseased is strongly influenced by historical context. Matters once considered to be diseases are no longer classified as such. For example, when black slaves ran away from plantations they were labeled to suffer from drapetomania and medical treatment was used to try to “cure” them.
