TBT: Blind to women’s sexual health

Today’s TBT post ran over two years ago and addressed female dysfunction. Given the FDA’s recent approval of flibanserin, a pill that aims to increase a woman’s desire for sex, we thought it would be helpful to review some of the early conversations on the issue.
A recent article published in partnership with The Investigative Fund and Newsweek questioned the existence of “female dysfunction,” as if to say, who cares about women’s sexual health? If you can’t “see” it, apparently it doesn’t exist. This is one-sided, inaccurate and disparaging of women.
Why is it that when men are impotent it is taken seriously, but when women suffer from sexual dysfunction it is ridiculed and attributed to “Big Pharma’s” attempt to conjure a condition so they can make and sell a drug?  If Pharma is so bad, why do we depend upon them to research and manufacture drugs to prevent and treat cancer?
Why do we hope that one of the companies will be successful in developing a drug to prevent, delay or treat Alzheimer’s disease? Do you give your child an antibiotic when they have strep or do you ignore it? If there is a pandemic whom do we turn to?
Full disclosure, my non-profit organization, the Society of Women’s Health Research (SWHR), credited with changing the face of medicine and the definition of women’s health, receives support from Pharma and our success could not have been possible without it.
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Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - August 20, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: dw at disruptivewomen.net Tags: Aging Choice gender Women's Health Flibanserin Food and Drug Administration Sexual desire Sexual dysfunction Source Type: blogs