Tues. 06/09/05 23:29 EDT
post #2

> There is a difference here. Mental illness cannot exist by
> definition, just as there can be no 6-foot midgets.

Yes, I see what you mean...mental illness is a sick joke:
But how can a joke be "sick"? Only in a metaphorical sense; and
how can a "mind" be ill? Only in a metaphorical sense!

So "schizophrenia" is a conceptually illegitimate "disease".
AIDS is a conceptually legitimate disease, but practically illegitimate
because of the extremely shabby "evidence" of its existence.

Perhaps, however, there are also similarities...consider the last
paragraph of Szasz's article, entitled "Defining disease:
The gold standard of disease versus the fiat standard of diagnosis"
(http://www.independent.org/pdf/tir/tir_10_3_01_szasz.pdf):

>The old quacks peddled fake cures to treat real diseases. The new
quacks peddle fake diseases to justify chemical pacification and
medical coercion. The old quacks were politically harmless: they
could harm individuals only with those individuals' consent. The new
quacks are a serious threat to individual liberty and personal
responsibility: they are agents of the therapeutic state who can and
do harm individuals both with and without those individuals' consent.
Theocracy is the alliance of religion with the state. Pharmacracy is
the alliance of medicine with the state.<

Is AIDS a "fake disease" or a "real disease"? Potentially real but
existentially unrealized? The new quacks are certainly strident
about asserting that "HIV kills like a truck" because, like all
quacks, they have a vested interest in doing so. Considerations such
as scientific validity, truth, evidence to support their claims,
and the wholesale poisoning of otherwise healthy but credulous people
are minor annoyances, at best.