The number of medicines prescribed per person each year in the UK has skyrocketed in the past twenty years, driven in part by the pharmaceutical industry, a new paper by sociologist Joan Busfield.

The number of prescriptions had increased from 8 per person in 1989 to 16.8 in 2008 and is now increasing at 4 to 5 per cent each year, said Busfield in a paper in Social Science & Medicine.

While there had been a “complex interaction of forces” causing the expansion, Professor Busfield’s paper concluded the pharmaceutical industry had been key in the growth.

“The industry, through its pursuit of profits and skilful use of marketing, its control of science, and disease mongering, has been a major driving force in the current expansion,” Professor Busfield said.