iatrogenic /iy-A-tro-jen-ik/. adjective. In medicine: an illness or symptom caused by a physician’s treatment or medications. In more general use, a problem caused by the means of treating that problem but ascribed to being a natural part of it. From Greek iatro-(pertaining to medicine or physicians) + -genic (producing, caused by).
“In healthcare, a significant percentage of illnesses are iatrogenic. In other words, they are caused by the treatment. Antibiotics may solve the problem of a current infection but also may be the cause of a future infection.” (Michael J. Gelb)
“Weber suggested they go outside and stroll down toward the river. A little nervously, Mark agreed. The brisk air worked on Mark. The longer they talked, the more adamant Mark became. It struck Weber that maybe he’d been helping the man create this illness. Iatrogenic. Collaboration between doctor and patient.” (Richard Powers)
“Those who cannot pay constitute about one-third of the population of our overcrowded and hopelessly mismanaged prisons, and the business of their trial by due process delays and overtaxes the courts beyond all reason. These are nomogenic crimes, caused by bad laws, just as iatrogenic diseases are caused by bad doctoring.” (Alan Watts)
“Spam arrives via email, and in our twenty-first-century economy, few can survive without email. This means identifying and deleting spam. Junk-mail filters can accomplish this automatically (though imperfectly, creating an iatrogenic problem when they divert real messages into the junk mailbox)…” (Craig Lambert)
“In addition to rent control’s random dispersal of benefits — remember, half of the Harmons’ apartments are uncontrolled — rent control is destructive because it discourages construction of new apartments and maintenance of existing ones. ¶ Thus it creates the ”emergency“ it supposedly cures. ¶ It exemplifies what the late New York senator Pat Moynihan called ‘iatrogenic government.’” (George Will)