Myth of female impotence 'created'

Viagra is used to treat male impotence

The pharmaceutical industry has "created" a disease out of female sexual problems, it has been suggested.

An article in the British Medical Journal suggests drug manufacturers are defining the condition in order to have a new market for products.

Since the launch of Viagra to treat male impotence in 1998, its manufacturers Pfizer has reported sales of $1.5bn.

Drug companies are now looking to recreate that kind of market with female sexual dysfunction, says the BMJ.

Drugs do have a role as part of a mechanism for dealing with sexual disorders

Dr John Dean, British Society for Sexual and Impotence Research

It says females sexual problems are being wrongly "medicalised", and the numbers affected exaggerated.

It also suggests some researchers are too closely linked to drug companies who sponsor conferences and research.

Disinterest

In the article, researcher Ray Moynihan said: "A cohort of researchers with close ties to drug companies are working with colleagues in the pharmaceutical industry to develop and define a new category of human illness at meetings heavily sponsored by companies racing to develop new drugs."

Some doctors say coining the phrase "female sexual dysfunction" makes an illness out of normal changes in women's sexual feelings which may happen after childbirth or being with the same partner for many years.

Dr Sandra Leiblum, professor of psychiatry at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School said: "I think there is dissatisfaction and perhaps disinterest among a lot of women, but that doesn't mean they have a disease."

And Dr John Bancroft, director of the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University said: "The danger of portraying sexual difficulties as a dysfunction is that they are likely to encourage doctors to prescribe drugs to change sexual function when the attention should be paid to other aspects of a woman's life.

"It's also likely to make women think they have a malfunction when they do not."

Treatment

Dr John Dean, secretary of the British Society for Sexual and Impotence Research told BBC News Online there was a medical side to sexual dysfunction problems, but that psychological and socio-economic factors, plus relationships also had a significant impact.

He said: "I would caution against the over-medicalisation of female sexual disorders."

Dr Dean added: "By putting a pathological definition on something people believe they have something that needs treatment."

But he added: "Drugs do have a role as part of a mechanism for dealing with sexual disorders."

He said there was nothing wrong with drug companies having close links with researchers.

However, he said: "You must avoid collusion and avoid the influence of the industry spinning the direction the research takes."

A spokeswoman for Pfizer denied it was "creating" disorders, adding that Viagra along with rival products from Eli Lilly/ICOS and Bayer/GlaxoSmithKline had not yet been approved for use in women.

She told Reuters: "I think this article is a tremendous disservice to the women who tell us they are suffering.

"We work on unmet medical needs. There were academics who were working on this long before they came to us to ask us for support."

The company said preliminary research had shown Viagra could help a proportion of women with female sexual dysfunction, but this was still at a very early stage and the drug was not licensed to treat the condition.