Re: Media Hyping Viagra for Women for Drug Company Greed

[Guest guest]

my doc tried me on viagra over ten years ago...I took it twice and it did nothing...the sickening thing is that you know that many women will take it and even if it doesn't help will keep on taking it in the vain hope that it's doing SOMETHING....

glad to say I no longer need Viagra!! I'm off all the offending crap that messed with my sex drive ---- and it's not just SSRI's. The antipsychotic was a horrible offender too...but those of us on antipsychotics are considered subhuman so no one gives a s^ & t if we have sexual dysfunction...

still have a ways to go to be off everything 100% but life continues to look better.

Dear Members,

Think back to all the years that Viagra ha been around. The one

consistent message was that Viagra was not for women. Here is a short

Q and A from Cosmopolitan magazine. Below that is the article on

hyping Viagra to women.

Q: Can women take Viagra?

What will happen if I take Viagra? Does it work on women, and is it

dangerous to try?

A: Viagra was developed to help men with erectile dysfunction. It

works by allowing increased blood flow to the penis, which causes an

erection. And, judging by the billions of dollars in sales, Viagra

(and similar drugs) is the greatest invention since the wheel — if you

happen to be a man who can't get it up. However, the studies done to

test its effectiveness on women have yielded less-than-stellar

results, probably because men and women are fundamentally different

when it comes to desire and arousal. Though the increased blood flow

down below has caused some women who've tried the drug to experience

physical arousal, it's had little effect on desire.

Should you try Viagra? No, absolutely not! For starters, the Food and

Drug Administration has approved it only for men (even though some

doctors still prescribe it to their female patients, but that's a

whole other issue). And there has been little research on what kinds

of side effects it might have on women. The most common reactions that

men experience include headaches, indigestion, diarrhea, flushed skin,

and dizziness. It's even been known to cause heart attacks and

strokes, especially when taken with certain other medications

(including recreational drugs like cocaine or ecstasy). Plus, you

shouldn't be thinking about taking any prescription medicine unless

it's been prescribed for you by your physician!

There are plenty of other ways to heat up your sack sessions. (Take a

look through the Carnal Counselor archives for some suggestions.) So,

do yourself a favor and try to get creative in bed the old-fashioned

way — by relying on your brain, not a little blue pill.

----------------------------------------------------------------END Cosmo Q & A

Media Hyping Viagra for Women for Drug Company Greed

By Martha Rosenberg, AlterNet. Posted July 31, 2008.

Drugmaker Pfizer is claiming a new use for Viagra, which would

conveniently treat the side effects of one of its other drugs.

When headlines from 500 news sources screamed " Women Need Viagra Too! "

on the basis of a new JAMA study this month, it looked like more

Viagra huckstering as usual.

The study boasted that 72 percent of its participants -- women with

antidepressant-associated sexual dysfunction (AASD) who had previously

had normal sexual function and whose depression had lifted --

responded favorably to Viagra. That's an impressive claim until you

see that the study size was only 98 -- or that Pfizer, the blue pill's

manufacturer, paid for it.

What's more, its two lead authors, H. Nurnberg, M.D. and a

L. Hensley, M.D., report being paid consultants to Pfizer (among

dozens of other drug companies) and were participants on its speaker

bureau in a previous JAMA study about Viagra for men with

antidepressant-associated sexual dysfunction.

And, Pfizer may be in trouble as it approaches the 2011-2013

Viagra/Lipitor " patent cliff " -- the sales falloff expected when

patents expire. This comes on the heels of the Federal Aviation

Administration's recent action banning pilots and air traffic

controllers from taking Pfizer's anti-smoking drug Chantix. (Sell the

company for parts, says Citigroup analyst Boris, noting steady

prescription decline since 2004.)

Viagra use itself might be down as the economy squeezes consumers,

since the prescriptions are often paid out of pocket, suggests CNBC

pharmaceutical reporter Mike Huckman. Men may be cutting Viagra from

their budgets -- or cutting pills in half.

But the JAMA article might have less to do with opening new Viagra

markets than with keeping the nation's 150 million antidepressant

users -- 16 percent of all women between the ages of 20 and 44,

according to one estimate -- from going off their meds because of

sexual dysfunction side effects.

Especially since Pfizer also makes the antidepressant Zoloft.

About half of all people taking selective serotonin reuptake

inhibitors (SSRIs) like Zoloft experience sexual dysfunction such as

loss of libido or anorgasmia, and as many as 90 percent go off their

meds because of it, say researchers. That's a lot of lost patients.

Viagra, or sildenafil citrate, works by inhibiting " cGMP catabolism "

in the smooth muscle tissue of the clitoris and penis, which enhances

the " cGMP activity " that enables tissue to respond to sexual

stimulation -- possibly even when serotonin-altered, as is the case

with women on antidepressants.

Still, the study of women's sexual functioning even without the

complication of other drugs is a science in its infancy: Not until

June of 2005 did the first MRI of the clitoris show that it has 17

parts, with nerve endings extending deep inside a woman's body.

Research suggests that male and female sexual functioning differ

considerably, and past Viagra studies have failed to show convincing

evidence of the drug's ability to increase sexual response in women.

While one study in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology

in 2001 showed potential, subsequent studies of sildenafil citrate in

women didn't -- a Journal of Women's Health & Gender-Based Medicine

study in 2004 concluded, " Any genital physiological effect of

sildenafil was not perceived as improving the sexual response " -- and

the search for parallel Viagra benefits was largely abandoned.

Until now.

The chance that a Viagra for women could still be viable was so

riveting to the mainstream, scientific and investment press that some

headlines this month declared that Viagra works in " depressed women "

instead of " women on antidepressants " -- a big conceptual difference.

Big pharma's male domination -- and Wall Street's -- has led feminists

and sexuality researchers to question the whole pursuit of a female

sexuality drug.

If improving women's lives were really the goal, then why would the

morning-after pill and other important reproductive drugs continue to

languish while pharma forges ahead, trying to rope women into its

renewed Viagra propaganda?

Perhaps the answer lies in drug companies' uncanny ability to overlook

more serious health concerns and instead exaggerate relatively minor

ones. Market directly to consumers, and worried patients will ask for

the drug by name. Pay off physicians, and they will overprescribe.

Then, as drugs approach the end of their patents, discover a new use

for them -- treating the side effects of other drugs. Call it

disease-mongering with a side of sexism.

If that is, in fact, pharma's strategy, based on the number of women

taking antidepressants, it looks like it's working: A whopping 20

percent American women are being treated with prescription drugs for a

variety of mental health disorders including depression, anxiety,

seasonal affective disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, bipolar

disorder, panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, posttraumatic

stress disorder, eating disorders, premenstrual dysphoric disorder --

even compulsive shopping.

They are treated so aggressively that doctors will add a second drug

or third drug for side effects rather than stop the first.

The Zoloft page on the Pfizer Web site hucksters -- " If you have

premenstrual dysphoric disorder you experience severe changes in your

mood and body around the time of your period. Those changes can get in

the way of day-to-day living " -- and the Viagra page is just a mouse

click away.

--

Regards,

------------------------------------

To subscribe to our off-topic Social list go to:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/socialWandR/

To subscribe to our Truth-in-Health list go to:

http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/truth-in-health