For you people out there that worship science. lol
Female sexual dysfunction - which is claimed to affect up to two
thirds of women - is a disorder invented by the pharmaceutical
industry to build global markets for drugs to treat it, it is
claimed today.
Drug companies have invested millions in the search for a female
equivalent of Viagra, so far without success. But while doing so
they have stoked demand by creating a buzz around the disorder they
have created, according to Ray Moynihan, a lecturer at the
University of Newcastle in Australia.
Corporate employees worked with medical opinion leaders, ran
surveys aimed at portraying the problem as widespread and helped
create the diagnostic instruments to persuade women that their
sexual difficulties deserved a medical label. But sex problems in
women are far more complex than they are in men, encompassing lack
of desire, lack of arousal and lack of orgasm and the drug
industry's narrow focus is failing them.
Mr Moynihan, who first investigated the drug industry's role in
female sexual dysfunction a decade ago, says it illustrates a wider
problem about the creation of new diseases, and the widening of
existing boundaries for treatment with designations such as
pre-diabetes, pre-hypertension and pre-osteoporosis, for which the
latest treatments are aggressively promoted.
In his new book, Sex, Lies and Pharmaceuticals, which
is previewed in the British Medical Journal, he says:
"Drug marketing is merging with medical science in a fascinating
and frightening way. Perhaps it is time to reassess the way in
which the medical establishment defines common conditions and
recommends how to treat them."
In 2005, Pfizer, makers of Viagra, funded a survey which showed
63 per cent of women had sexual dysfunction and that testosterone
and Viagra might be helpful.
In 2006, Procter and Gamble, makers of a testosterone patch for
women, sponsored a survey showing one in 10 postmenopausal women
had hypoactive [low] sexual desire disorder (the company sold its
drug business in 2009).
In 2008, Boehringer Ingelheim, makers of flibanserin which is
claimed to boost the female libido, sponsored a survey which also
showed one in 10 women was in need of help.
Efforts by the companies to meet the need have subsequently
foundered. Pfizer pulled Viagra from the market for women after
trials showed it had no greater effect than placebo.
Procter and Gamble's testosterone patch was rejected in 2004 in
the US, over fears it raised the risk of cancer and heart disease
and Beohringer Ingelheim's drug, flibanserin, was rejected by the
US Food and Drug Administration in June on the grounds it had
failed to deliver the agreed benefits while carrying the risk of
serious side effects.
Mr Moynihan warns that although the drugs have so far failed,
more are in the pipeline and claims that "the drug industry shows
no signs of abandoning plans to meet the unmet need it has helped
to manufacture".
A spokesman for Pfizer said: "We currently have no plans to
develop medicines for FSD."
- INDEPENDENT
