Yahoo! News - Firms Deny Creating Female Sexual DisorderFirms Deny Creating Female Sexual Disorder
Fri Jan 3,10:16 AM ET
LONDON (Reuters) - Pharmaceutical firms on Friday rejected claims they had created 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 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 result was that female sexual problems were being wrongly "medicalized" and the number of women affected greatly exaggerated.
The author of the article, Australian Financial Review journalist Ray Moynihan, said claims that 43 percent of women aged 18-59 had female sexual dysfunction were misleading and potentially dangerous.
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.
But drugmakers said they were simply seeking a treatment option for millions of women with sexual difficulties equivalent to the erectile dysfunction that men can face, which is now frequently treated with Viagra, a $1.5 billion seller for Pfizer Inc.
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