This from ABC News:
"Federal health experts say unanimously the first pill designed to boost female libido did not show strong enough results to warrant approval.Boehringer Ingelheim's pink pill flibanserin is the latest drug industry offering to target women with low sex drive, a market potentially worth billions.
But members of the Food and Drug Administration's reproductive drugs panel voted 11-0 that the drug's benefits did not outweigh side effects, including fatigue, depression and fainting spells."
This is good news as far as I'm concerned as flibanserin was clearly not ready or justified. I think what comes next is more confusing. First, the FDA still has to decide about the drug (they don't always follow the advice of their expert panels). But the bigger picture is that there are still women who struggle with issues of sexual desire, and there will continue to be companies which see that struggle as dollar signs. I'm not naive enough to think anything is going to change in the pharmaceutical industry, but I wonder if it's possible for there to be another way, another process whereby treatments and interventions meant to improve the quality of our lives could be developed in a more thoughtful, less alienating, and combative way. It's not my area of work, but while I applaud and support those who were fighting against flibanserin, I'm aware that if they were able to spend the same amount of energy and time on helping folks (which in truth most of them do in their day jobs) we'd all be better off.
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