Sex, Lies, and Pharmaceuticals: How Drug Companies Plan to Profit from Female Sexual Dysfunction

by Ray Moynihan, Barbara Mintzes

Overview

Against a backdrop of virtual intercourse, online porn, and burgeoning Viagra sales, Sex, Lies, and Pharmaceuticals reveals how women’s sexual difficulties are being repackaged as symptoms of a new disorder. In this compelling book, award-winning journalist Ray Moynihan teams up with drug assessment specialist Barbara Mintzes to investigate the creation of female sexual dysfunction or FSD, and the marketing machine that promises to "cure" it. The authors go inside the corridors of medical power to visit drug company–sponsored scientific meetings and medical education events where doctors are being trained to see women’s sexual problems as the symptoms of FSD — a pharmaceutically treatable condition. Moynihan and Mintzes explore the underlying causes of sexual dissatisfaction among women and expose how global drug companies exploit those problems in an attempt to create the next billion dollar disease.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781553655084
Publisher:	Greystone Books
Publication date:	10/01/2010
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Ray Moynihan has been covering the business of health care for more than a decade with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the Australian Financial Review, and the British Medical Journal. He is an award-winning journalist and the author of three previous books, including Selling Sickness, which has been translated into a dozen languages.

Dr. Barbara Mintzes investigates the link between clinical trial and pharmacosurveillance evidence on drug safety and effectiveness, and provincial drug financing decisions. She holds a BA in geography from Simon Fraser Universityand a PhD in health care and epidemiology from UBC. She currently works at UBC in Vancouver as Assistant Professor in the Department of Pharmacology & Therapeutics.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"…a solid, detailed study of how the influence of the pharmaceutical industry may be distorting medical science"—Library Journal

Editorial Reviews

"…a solid, detailed study of how the influence of the pharmaceutical industry may be distorting medical science"—Library Journal

From the Publisher

Moynihan (Selling Sickness), an academic researcher and health journalist in Australia, here monitors the creation of a new medical condition called female sexual dysfunction (FSD). It appears pharmaceutical companies are sponsoring relevant medical research, while helping to design the tools to diagnose FSD. Meanwhile, a feminist backlash is building against making a condition out of low desire. Moynihan reviews the pervasive support that pharmaceutical companies offer to medical associations, conferences, seminars, journals, and research studies. Mintzes (pharmacology, Univ. of British Columbia) contributes a chapter describing how Viagra and similar medications have been promoted. The public now sees erectile dysfunction as a physical problem that can easily be treated. Mintzes is concerned that something similar could happen with new drugs or hormones designed for women. VERDICT Moynihan presents a solid, detailed study of how the influence of the pharmaceutical industry may be distorting medical science. This book will be of most interest to students and those broadly concerned about health issues.—David R. Conn, Surrey P.L., B.C.

Library Journal