sex pill for women: big pharma trying to profit from another made-up illness?

thanks again alternet! below, an excerpt from sex pill for women article:

Even though Boynton declined, Boehringer-Ingelheim invited her to write a paper for the British Journal of Sexual Medicine. “They had clear instructions about what they wanted me to say and how this would set the scene that HSDD was a prevalent and distressing problem doctors ought to be aware of — presumably so they could be alerted to a problem and be more willing to prescribe a pill when said medication became available.”

Flash forward to March of this year when Boehringer-Ingelheim rolled out its Sex Brain Body: Make the Connection campaign starring TV personality Lisa Rinna — replete with glitzy disease branding web site in the Restless Legs/Excessive Sleepiness/Social Anxiety Disorder tradition. Nowhere is flibanserin, not approved yet, mentioned.

“If There is No Desire to Get Physically Romantic, You Could Be Suffering from HSDD,” blares a Top News article in June with the indicated boudoir photo, auguring the next “epidemic.”

Of course,  some gynecologists, sex researchers and patients welcome the fact that pharma is no longer ignoring women’s sexuality. Why should men have all the fun, they ask? But others see in HSDD marketing the same forces responsible for the terms “frigid,” “nymphomaniac,” battles for safe and effective birth control and reproductive health care and social tolerance of violent or degrading pornography — namely, men defining women’s sexuality for their own purposes. Nor do Google search images for HSDD, which are pretty “800 number/phone sex” allay fears.