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Here's two related stories on Viagra - and it's road to treating women for "FSD." You mean you've never heard of "FSD?" . . . read on.
Sex drugs may be unnecessary
Drug companies are coming under attack for creating a new medical disorder known as "female sexual dysfunction" (FSD) in order to build markets for drugs among women, according to an article in the British Medical Journal. The author of the article, Ray Moynihan, says that over the past six years, researchers with close ties to the pharmaceutical industry have been developing and defining the new disorder at company- sponsored meetings.
He cites as a "milestone" in FSD, the publication of an article in February 1999, which suggested that 43 per cent of women aged 18 to 59 had the condition, although leading researchers have since raised serious concerns about this figure, describing it as misleading and potentially dangerous. The figure originates in a 1992 survey of 1500 women asked about anxiety or lack of desire during sex.
Portraying sexual difficulties as a dysfunction could encourage doctors to prescribe drugs that change sexual function, when attention should be paid to other aspects of the woman's life, he says. Another concern is the ever-narrowing definitions of "normal" which help turn the complaints of the healthy into the conditions of the sick.
US psychiatrist Sandra Leiblum rejected the 43 per cent figure. "I think this is dissatisfaction and perhaps disinterest among a lot of women, but that doesn't mean they have a disease," she said.
And now the other side of the story.
Drugmakers Deny Inventing a Disorder
Reuters
Saturday, January 4, 2003
Saturday, January 4, 2003
Pharmaceutical companies yesterday rejected a published account claiming they had invented a new disorder known as female sexual dysfunction to build a market for Viagra and similar drugs among women. An article in the British Medical Journal said researchers with close ties to the industry had defined the new disorder at company-sponsored meetings over the past six years to encourage use of the same medicines that have helped men with impotence.
The author of the article, Ray Moynihan, said widely reported statistics that 43 percent of women older than 18 had female sexual dysfunction were misleading. He traced the origin of the definition of the condition to a May 1997 meeting of researchers and drug company representatives at a Cape Cod hotel.
The figure comes from a reanalysis of a 1992 survey of 1,500 women, who were asked whether they had experienced any of seven sexual difficulties for more than two months during the previous year. The sexual difficulties included a lack of desire for sex, anxiety about sexual performance and difficulties with lubrication.
A Pfizer spokeswoman denied the allegations that the company invented female sexual dysfunction.
Pfizer made $1.5 billion from Viagra in 2001.
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Best wishes. Dr. Rehert
Best wishes. Dr. Rehert
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