Have You Ever Wondered How A Particular Drug Qualified For Market But Didn’t Know How To Find Out?

Click Here to read Lena's 59 Year Health Journey

Q: How did this drug get on the market when it made me so ill?  

A: Good PR and the right connections is what I answer!  

What the average person does not know; drug companies quietly and very subtly start to lobby and familiarize the medical community and the world with a disease before they market a drug to counteract that certain illness/disease! 

They pay for some testing – researchers paid by that particular drug company -  then skew the findings to show what they want the doctor’s and the FDA to know! And fail to show the real facts!
 
Example; In November 2001 a California firm offering "business intelligence" announced, "43% of all women over 18 experience sexual dysfunction . . . Reason behind that announcement? Never mind that was not established at that time!

 Why that announcement? 

Greater public awareness and acceptance of sexual dysfunction (SD) - even though it had not been established as truth -  as a common and treatable disease will heavily influence market growth, predominantly for women.  

Then in August 2002 a company looking for women for a clinical trial to determine a new drug efficiency for "female sexual arousal disorder".  The “business intelligence” advertisement prominently cited the figures, "43% of all women over 18 experience sexual dysfunction . . . " in its press release.  Not yet established but exactly what they wanted to show in order to get their drug approved for market! Such similar wording as the news release in November 2001.That release also quoted a Dr Sweeney saying that 40% of women have the dysfunction in one form or another, "but not all have the most severe form of the disease."  Nobody had ever heard of SD as a disease prior to that?

One of the milestones in the beginning of marketing that disorder was a JAMA article in February 1999 titled "Sexual dysfunction in the United States: prevalence and predictors."  Two of the authors of "Sexual dysfunction in the United States: prevalence and predictors.", later admitted to close ties to Pfizer Pharmaceuticals (aka Business Intelligence), said that for women aged 18-59, the "total prevalence of sexual dysfunction" was 43%, a figure picked up by the subtle release to the news  media and medical community now widely cited in both scientific and lay media as gospel truth.
 
First let's see how 43% was decided on!
 
A University of Chicago sociology professor Ed Laumann and colleagues reanalyzed a slice of data from a 1992 survey and came up with serious questions about the 43% figure so aptly bantered about with those releases. That figure came from a study of around 1500 women who were asked to answer yes or no to whether they had experienced any of seven problems, for two months or more, during the previous year, including a lack of desire for sex or anxiety about sexual performance and difficulties with vaginal lubrication. If the women answered yes to just one of the seven questions, they were included in a group characterized as having SD.  No mention of what time of the month or what circumstances led up to their answer was asked or noted. I don’t know a single woman who has not had a day or two when six wasn’t a desirable need, doesn’t mean they have a problem with sex!
 
The JAMA article stated that its data was "not equivalent to clinical diagnosis," yet that note was overlooked, and some leading sex researchers have raised serious concerns about the figure's constant misuse.  One of those concerned was Dr Sandra Leiblum, a former professor of psychiatry at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and a clinical psychologist in private practice. She believes real dysfunction is much less prevalent than 43%, and that the figure has contributed to an over medicalization of women's sexuality,  where changes in sexual desire, from time to time, is the norm not a problem. "I think there is dissatisfaction and perhaps disinterest among a lot of women, but that doesn't mean they have a disease," she stated during an interview at a New York educational workshop.

The director of the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University, Dr John Bancroft, believes the term "dysfunction" is highly misleading, and he is one of several researchers critical of the corporate sponsored 1998 definition. He argues that an inhibition of sexual desire is in many situations a healthy and functional response for women faced with stress, tiredness, or threatening patterns of behavior from their partners. "The danger of portraying sexual difficulties as a dysfunction is that it is likely to encourage doctors to prescribe drugs to change sexual function when the attention should be paid to other aspects of the woman's life. It's also likely to make women think they have a malfunction when they do not." 

Laumann defends his use of the term "dysfunction" but concedes that many women among his 43% are "perfectly normal" and that a lot of their problems "arise out of perfectly reasonable responses of the human organism to challenges and stress."   Could this have been another ploy by the Pfizer  company to come up with a disease to fit a drug they were working on and about to release? Exactly what it is!

 This too happened with Viagra before it was released, it has happened with other drugs many times in the past and continues to happen as the drug companies come up with more drugs.  

How about the past commercials, showing premenstrual gals in the department store dressing rooms trying on clothes and the bloating they were experiencing and then it moved to the nasty outbursts and the term PMDD  (Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder)? The ads for Serafem coming out shortly after those ads appeared for a so-called PMDD disorder. Serafem being nothing more than the very dangerous antidepressant drug Prozac repackaged in lavender pink, marketed to women for PMDD. I like what the late Nicholas Regush, health investigative reporter's question in regards to the FDA approving Serafem. “Were members of its advisory committee suffering emotionally from Pre-BS Affliction (PBSA) when they approved Sarafem/Prozac for PMDD?”  I would like to add that they are still suffering from PBSA. You know the term BS, right?

As early as two to five years prior to release, an occurrence of "informational" meetings and speeches spouting the latest diagnoses begin bombarding the medical world. All set up to get a new classified disease and their drug paid for by insurance companies and recognized by the medical community. These meetings are published as "informational" by the news media. Informational? Like a fox in a chicken house!!  

Those meetings are all a forerunner of a new disease that will shortly have a HCFA number for billing insurances. I've watched it happen over and over for years now and even attended a workshop or two – before retiring from the medical office - paid for by a pharmaceutical company working on coining a new disease/illness with a medication released within months to two years later!
 
Scientists who see through their smoke screens and try to call them on it usually lose in the attempt to thwart the pharmaceutical industry's goal of billions of dollars in their pockets! Those are labeled as cracked or as troublemakers by the big pharma world.

References
 

1) Laumann E, Paik A, Rosen R. Sexual dysfunction in the United States: prevalence and predictors [published erratum appears in JAMA 1999;281:1174]. JAMA 1999; 281: 537-544[ISI][Medline].

2) Berman J, Berman L, Goldstein I. Female sexual dysfunction: incidence, pathophysiology, evaluation, and treatment options. Urology 1999; 54: 385-391[ISI][Medline]. 

3)   Cooke R. There's gold in them there pills. Observer 2002 October 27. 

4)  Bancroft J. The medicalization of female sexual dysfunction: the need for caution. Arch Sex Behavr 2002; 31: 451-455. 

5)  Segraves R, ed. Historical and international context of nosology of female sexual disorders. J Sex Marital Therapy 2001; 27(2): 81-245[ISI]. 

6)  Tiefer L. The medicalization of sexuality: conceptual, normative, and professional issues. Annu Rev Sex Res 1996; 7: 252-282. 

7)  Tiefer L. Sexology and the pharmaceutical industry: the threat of co-optation. J Sex Res 2000; 37: 273-283[ISI]. 

***Lena Sanchez a happy Retired Medical Office Nurse/Administrator, Medical Office Consultant turned Alternative Health Consultant took charge of her life in 1992 substituted healthy drug-free alternatives getting actual pain relief after 30 years with fibromyalgia, Chronic Fatigue and never ending illnesses all kinds never solved with conventional medicine . Now committed to helping others do the same by educating on truly treating illness and disease rather than masking symptoms. See http://www.antibiotic-alternatives.com  Other informative health articles regarding prevention and steps to take to be the healthiest you can be found at http://www.antibiotic-alternatives.com/free_health_articles_by_Lena_Sanchez.htm