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The Women’s Libido Pill Is Back, and So Is the Controversy

June 14, 2018

Depending on whom you ask, Addyi is the overdue answer to an unmet need or just another way to shame women

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The Women’s Libido Pill Is Back, and So Is the Controversy

Thursday, June 14th, 2018

This past January, when Cindy Eckert got back the keys to her old office in Raleigh, N.C., she walked into a time capsule. An empty water glass still sat on the receptionist’s desk. Piles of marketing materials were gathering dust. Boxes with three-year-old FedEx labels had never been shipped. It was the first time Eckert had entered the office since she sold—and was then pushed out of—her company, Sprout Pharmaceuticals Inc. She and her then-husband started the company to bring to market the first drug to enhance female sexual desire. Since that moment, the story of Addyi, the pink pill, has been frozen in time.

Addyi, the brand name for flibanserin, hit the market in 2015 and the buzz was instant. Inevitably, the media dubbed it “female Viagra.” But Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc., which had just bought Sprout for $1 billion, almost immediately faced a distribution scandal having nothing to do with Addyi, and the drug was dragged down with the rest of the company. It’s languished ever since. In a typical month, about 600 prescriptions are filled, compared with almost 800,000 for erectile dysfunction drugs Cialis, Viagra, and Viagra’s generic equivalent.

…continue reading ‘The Women’s Libido Pill Is Back, and So Is the Controversy’

Image: By ParentingPatch – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24579789

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Bloomberg

Childhood Torment, Social Isolation Can Turn Minds Toward Hate

August 24, 2017

Those who study human behavior attribute hate speech more to deep personality issues than to a diagnosable mental illness. But they’re also intrigued by how the white supremacy movement is rebranding itself for the 21st century

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Childhood Torment, Social Isolation Can Turn Minds Toward Hate

Thursday, August 24th, 2017

Cries of “Nazis, go home!” and “Shame! Shame!” filled the air as Angela King and Tony McAleer stood with other counterprotesters at the “free speech” rally in Boston last weekend.

They didn’t join the shouting. Their sign spoke for them: “There is life after hate.”

They know because McAleer and King were once young extremists themselves, before they co-founded the nonprofit Life After Hate to help former white supremacists restart their lives. To hear them talk about their pasts hints at what may be in the minds of those inside the far-right fringe groups whose actions have ignited raw, angry passions across the country. What are people thinking when they spew hate? Are they all true believers? What’s more, how does someone get that way?

Image via Flickr Some rights reserved by Bob Jagendorf

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KHN

Aid to Women, or Bottom Line? Advocates Split on Libido Pill

June 15, 2015

The FDA has not yet made a final decision. But by lending their heft to a campaign for the drug, the feminists won the support of much of the nonprofit women’s health community in Washington, galvanizing it with the charge that a refusal to approve the drug would be sexist

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Aid to Women, or Bottom Line? Advocates Split on Libido Pill

Monday, June 15th, 2015

Less noticed were women’s groups that refused to join the campaign, contending that waving the flag of gender bias would undermine what should be an impartial process based on science. Among them were the National Women’s Health Network andOur Bodies Ourselves. Many believed the pill’s risks — fatigue, fainting, dizziness and nausea — outweighed the benefits, which they said were meager. (Women taking the drug had about one more satisfying sexual event per month than women receiving a placebo.)

The campaign divided the normally cohesive women’s health community, which has long fought together for access to birth control and for abortion rights.

“From my perspective, that was a really inappropriate strategy, and I really didn’t like it,” said Susan F. Wood, director of the Jacobs Institute of Women’s Health at George Washington University. She said the company had “made the rounds,” asking for the support of women’s health organizations, including hers. “There are some very important issues around ensuring that women get studied and women’s health needs are addressed,” she said. “This trivializes that work.”

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NYTimes

FDA Panel Votes in Favor of ‘Female Viagra’

June 5, 2015

An FDA advisory panel on Thursday voted 18 to 6 in support of approving a drug that would help to increase libido in women who lack sexual desire. Whether flibanserin receives official approval remains to be seen

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FDA Panel Votes in Favor of ‘Female Viagra’

Friday, June 5th, 2015

An FDA advisory panel on Thursday voted 18 to 6 in support of approving a drug that would help to increase libido in women who lack sexual desire.

The panel said the drug, flibanserin, should be approved if measures are taken to deal with side effects, the New York Times reports. The FDA will use the panel’s decision as a recommendation.

Flibanserin, which is owned by Sprout Pharmaceuticals, has been rejected by the FDA in the past. The drug is meant for women with low sexual desire, specifically Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (HSDD), and many advocates for the drug’s approval have argued that women don’t have any drugs to treat sexual dysfunction while men have several. The FDA has had previous concerns about the drug’s side effects, which include nausea, sleepiness and, in rare cases, low blood pressure and fainting.

The drug is thought to work by targeting neurotransmitters in the brain involved with sexual desire. It temporarily lowers serotonin levels and raises the levels of dopamine and norepinephrine.

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TIME

The Women’s Libido Pill Is Back, and So Is the Controversy

The Women’s Libido Pill Is Back, and So Is the Controversy

Childhood Torment, Social Isolation Can Turn Minds Toward Hate

Childhood Torment, Social Isolation Can Turn Minds Toward Hate

Aid to Women, or Bottom Line? Advocates Split on Libido Pill

Aid to Women, or Bottom Line? Advocates Split on Libido Pill

FDA Panel Votes in Favor of ‘Female Viagra’

FDA Panel Votes in Favor of ‘Female Viagra’

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