Sex, Lies, and Pharmaceuticals by Ray Moynihan

Author:Ray Moynihan
Language: ru
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: MED078000
Publisher: Greystone Books
Published: 2010-10-01T20:00:00+00:00

Six

Premature prescriptions

We’re very excited that the future is with us.

—Dr Irwin Goldstein

It was only 7.30 a.m. but the ballroom was already buzzing when Leonore Tiefer’s small group of academic activists arrived, taking their seats alongside the corporate suits and tweed jackets. The unlikely setting for the coming showdown was a big room in a Hilton hotel, on the outskirts of Washington DC. Outside the hotel, the first orange blush of dawn had made way for a mild and cloudy December morning. Christmas lights were already up in the streets near the Hilton, and reindeers pranced among the used car yards and the colourful signs adorning the local shops: ‘Town Beauty Supplies’, ‘Hollywood Tans’ and ‘Discount Meds from Canada’. Despite the modest suburban setting, history would be made today in this Hilton ballroom. In open public hearings, advisers to the world’s most powerful drug regulator were to decide, for the first time ever, whether or not to approve a medicine for the tens of millions of women said to suffer from female sexual dysfunction.1

Hundreds of doctors, drug company officials, reporters and consumer advocates had come from across America to attend the historic meeting organised by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In line with the normal rules, a committee of experts had been assembled to assess the evidence about the new drug for women, listen to input from the FDA, the manufacturer and the public and then make a recommendation to approve or not to approve. The decisions of these FDA committees can determine whether a new medicine will become a blockbuster in the giant US market, or will be consigned to the garbage can of medical history. The decisions can also influence regulators across the planet, opening the door to billions in global sales. On that cloudy December morning, the whole world was watching.

By close of business that afternoon, the seventeen independent experts on the committee would vote either ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to approve the use of a testosterone patch for women. The small patch was to be worn on a woman’s abdomen, just below her waist, from where it delivered testosterone into her body. The corporate colossus Procter & Gamble was seeking approval to market the patch to a very specific group of women: those who had previously had a hysterectomy and were diagnosed with the condition called ‘hypoactive sexual desire disorder’ or HSDD, one of the sub-disorders of female sexual dysfunction. Better known for selling women products for their kitchens and bathrooms, the company was hoping now to sell them testosterone for their bedrooms, and to make a handsome profit while doing so. In the lead-up to the FDA hearing, there were reports the corporation had already put aside US$100 million for the testos terone patch’s advertising budget alone, in the firm expectation its new medicine would be approved.

Leonore Tiefer’s team, which included a carload of university students, had booked out five rooms at a small hotel in a nearby town, paying just US$59 a night, compared with the US$159 being charged at the Hilton.

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