Medications for low libido in women

Drugs giants cashing in by 'inventing' low libido label in women

Illustration of frustrated woman in bedHe argues in the British Medical Journal that trials of drugs claiming to increase women’s libido have so far failed to provide evidence of any health benefit.

The claims, highlighted this week in an investigation by the Daily Mail’s Good Health section, come amid increasing concern about the explosion in labels for new medical conditions.

Doctors warn that some of these are ‘non-diseases’ based on diagnoses that treat normal behavioural differences as medical problems.

The definition of female sexual dysfunction (FSD) has been criticised as merely exaggeratingwomen’s dissatisfaction with their partners.

Other sceptics point to similar ‘conditions’ such as hyper-appetite problem – otherwise known as overeating – or Total Allergy Syndrome, in which allergies to ‘modern life’ including chemicals and artificial materials trigger multiple symptoms.

But the mixture of science and marketing behind FSD amounts to a ‘corporate sponsorship’ of the condition, claims Mr Moynihan in his book Sex, Lies and Pharmaceuticals.

The lecturer at the University of Newcastle, Australia, told the
BMJ: ‘Drug marketing is merging with medical science in a fascinating and frightening way.

‘Drug companies have not simply sponsored the science of this new condition; on occasion they have helped to construct it.’

He quotes a drug company employee saying her firm was interested in ‘expediting the development of a disease’ and had funded surveys portraying sexual problems as widespread.

Viagra: The quest for a female version has been created soley by the pharmaceutical industry claim researchers

Many researchers involved in these activities worked in the drug industry or had financial ties to it.

But scientific studies of thousands of people conducted without industry funding have questioned whether a lack of interest in sex can be described as ‘dysfunctional’, with many women saying it was not a serious difficulty.

In June a new libido drug called flibanserin was rejected by advisers to the U.S. drugs watchdog, the Food and Drug Administration because it failed to live up to pre-agreed benefits while carrying the risk of serious side effects.

Viagra, made by Pfizer, was also pulled from the race after studies showed it made virtually no difference in women with low libido.

But Mr Moynihan warns a global marketing operation is ready to get behind the next potentially moneyspinning product.

‘The edifice of scientific evidence about the condition remains in place, creating the impression that there is a massive “unmet need” for treatment, ’ he said. ‘The drug industry shows no signs of abandoning plans to meet the need it has helped to manufacture.’

Mr Moynihan called for a fresh approach towards defining disease. He said: ‘Perhaps it is time to develop new panels without financial ties to those with vested interests in the outcomes of their deliberations and much more broadly representative of the wider public – and to start the slow process of untangling the marketing from the medical science.’

However, Dr Sandy Goldbeck-Wood, a specialist in psychosexual medicine, said in a commentary piece in the BMJ that some women have very real difficulties in getting help for sexual problems.

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