Viagra for women
A panel of federal advisers wrestle to give answer to a question that has bedeviled generations of frustrated men: What do women want?
That enigma will be part of a Food and Drug Administration committee’s deliberations next month when it considers endorsing the first pill designed to do for women what Viagra did for men. A German pharmaceutical giant wants to sell a drug called flibanserin, which has shown prowess for sparking a woman’s sexual desire by influencing her brain chemicals. The prospect of the drug’s approval has triggered debate over whether the medication, like others in the pipeline, represents a long-sought step toward equity for women’s health or the latest example of the pharmaceutical industry fabricating a questionable disorder to sell unnecessary – and potentially dangerous drugs.
“Achieving a happy and healthy sex life can be a real and important problem for some women,” said Amy Allina of the National Women’s Health Network. – But we have lots of questions about the pink Viagra. ”
Viagra Drugmaker Pfizer’s hoped that “little blue pill” would also ignite female libido, however, making it clear that a woman’s sexuality is more complicated than a man’s.
Scientists found that flibanserin, developed as an antidepressant, was ineffective for treatment of depression. But the drug appeared to produce an unexpected side effect: boosting women’s libido. That prompted the company to study it for hypoactive sexual desire disorder, or HSDD, an otherwise unexplained loss of sexual thoughts, fantasies and desire that can cause significant emotional distress. Some research suggests 10 percent of women may suffer from HSDD.
“It’s not that they are averse to sex. It’s just that they don’t care about it. They just stop thinking about it,” said Anita H. Clayton, a professor of psychiatry and neurobehavioral sciences at the University of Virginia who has studied the drug for the company. “It’s like a switch has been flipped. It’s a loss for them. They miss it. And they want it back.”
The company has sponsored studies involving more than 5,000 premenopausal women ages 18 to 50 in the United States, Canada and Europe in whom HSDD had been diagnosed. A 100-milligram daily dosage increased the number of satisfying sexual experiences that women had reported from the previous month – a key benchmark the FDA has set for such drugs — from an average of 2.7 to 4.5, compared with 3.7 among those taking a placebo.
Critics have ridiculed that difference as small. But Sand and other researchers say that for many women, the difference is significant.
Source:The Washington Post
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