This is the state of Medicine today. Flimsy scientific evidence will get a handful of women a pink pill to enhance their sexual desire and get 0.8 more satisfactory sexual ‘events’ a month (not even 1 whole event) where as flimsy scientific evidence is deemed appropriate enough to label a plant and its derivatives a Schedule 1 drug – highly addictive with no medicinal properties. Note again, insufficient evidence makes marijuana a bad drug but flibanserin a good one!

Disraeli correctly stated: there are three kinds of untruths – lies, damned lies, and statistics. The big daddies of immoral manipulative marketing, the pharmaceutical companies, mint big bucks from accidentally discovered synthetic garbage (like flibanserin) by regurgitating rickety thin statistics while chronically ill people including little children with long standing disease whose endless suffering could be mitigated with a few drops or a gum or a puff of a naturally occurring plant derivative (marijuana), remain trapped in bureaucratic regulatory nonsense because we can’t make up our minds whether we should allow research or not! Such deceit. The food industry lies to us. The pharma industry lies to us. The policymakers lie to us. Why are we so easy to lie to?

The phenomenon of ‘disease mongering’ or ‘condition branding’ is not a new one – creating new medical disorders to sell ‘pseudo-drugs.’ The pharmaceutical industry has been doing this for decades. Circa 2010 – hypoactive sexual desire disorder or HSDD in women was never described as a disease before 2010 in medical textbooks or literature. Women having low sexual desire are a common occurrence. We knew that. It has been happening since Adam and Eve. Remember the caveman dude? He would not need to drag his woman by the hair if this was not a normally occurring part of women’s lives. But does that make them sick? Do we need a medication for a phenomenon that is not considered either by patients or by physicians as a sickness? Have women been ‘suffering in silence’ for all these years and will they now be relieved from the shackles of low sexual desire by a pink pill that cost $100 million to study? Not quite.

Around 2010, flibanserin was studied in a clinical trial as an anti-depressant. Though it failed to work in that setting, it was discovered that a few women had an enhancement of their sexual desire. Lo behold! The scientists and the drug industry had a Eureka moment and, somewhat deviously in my opinion, concocted HSDD so that they could ‘study’ the drug for an invented condition. We now have a new disorder, a new drug and, a new debate – the three Ds that will make some moneybags industrialists even richer.

There is robust evidence that HSDD was created by big pharma anticipating a market for flibanserin, cashing in on the highly combustible excuse that powerful federal agencies like the Food and Drug Administration fast track male sexual disorder treatments while ignoring female sexual disorders. They called it the ‘Even the Score’ lobby. Did it mess with our minds? Of course it did! Just like other beautifully fabricated discoveries with fancy names like GERD (gastro-esophageal reflux disease), premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), restless leg syndrome (RLS), irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), male pattern baldness, even attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) and most recently, binge eating disorder (BED) and opioid induced constipation (OIC).

These “medical conditions” have been created by pharmaceutical companies in well-funded studies to sell their products. The foolproof tactic – making people feel sick by preying on their insecurities – always works. Did you get heartburn after eating a spicy meal? Don’t worry we have a diagnosis and an expensive drug – proton pump inhibitors for GERD. Who knew baldness has gender? Male pattern ones, the most popular ones you know, can be treated with pricey drugs with flamboyant names to grow a few more wisps on your pate. But what about female pattern baldness? No one ever talks about that. As everywhere else, I see gender discrimination. And don’t even mention transgender pattern baldness. It does not exist, I am told. Such hirsute disparities are incredibly disturbing.

Do your legs move too much at night while asleep? I didn’t think so but my husband remarked casually once that mine did. I felt a little bit offended but then one day I was watching advertisements on television and thought I must have restless leg syndrome – a very well advertised ‘made up’ medical condition. Even though I feel completely healthy maybe I should check with my primary care physician to get a referral to a neurologist who may order a few expensive tests and that one sophisticated sounding drug for me to stop my wiggling toes from, well wiggling. No worries that I would have wasted thousands of dollars in my quest for a diagnosis and a treatment – I can boast about it to a captive audience on a Saturday night over cocktails and shrimp. Because that’s what humans are – weak and insecure. We all love the attention that we get from a spurious diagnosis. We love to blame our weaknesses on a medically recognized condition. If I eat too much, I must have BED. If my bowels are acting up, it’s probably because of IBS. Many distracted people I know bashfully admit they think they have ADHD – its hard not to mis a tinge of pride in their voice. They have a diagnosis – they are good. And so on.

Prozac’s name was sneakily changed to a more feminine sounding and appealing Sarafem and sold shamelessly for premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD). For ages we have known that hormonal changes in women can cause changes in mood every month. All women feel these ups and downs with the fluctuation in hormone levels in their blood. It is normal. That is how God meant it to be. Trust me. I am a woman and a women’s health specialist with three decades in the world of medicine under my belt. But suddenly, now we have an elaborately ornamental name for it, almost sexy sounding. Indeed, it has somehow become an illness. One that almost every woman suffers from. Should we blame God for a manufacturing defect then? He could have done better. What a slacker. Because of His lollygagging we have now a disease and a drug that made the richest people even richer. Yes, those same pharmaceutical head honchos.

Female sexuality is a complex beast. It is not slam-dunk wham bam thank you ma’am (or sir in this case) like male sexuality. For men it’s simple. You have the desire, you take the blue pill, you get it up and you cruise along. It’s all about the groin and has nothing to do with the brain. Or almost nothing I should say. For women, sexual desire is a direct outcome of, well, a motley crew of things – no laundry, no cooking, no cleaning, kids all done, nice man, clean sheets, low lights, soft music, flowers, chocolates, sweet nothings in the ear, respect, a gentle touch, and a meaningful conversation. You give women all this and no pink, violet, lavender, or lilac pills will be needed. The brain juices that the pill is touted to affect will flow along eloquently. But it’s tough. A high bar by any standards. And that’s why peddling a drug to women for sexual desire is short sighted and one-dimensional. In fact, I am concerned that there may be abuse potential from partners. In a world already racked with sexual violence, this could add a whole new component that worries me.

But let’s get back to how we have been manipulated by the industry and how it smacks of nothing but dishonesty, mindfulness based trickery, a shameless sham, deceitful to the core. Like helpless pawns we fall for it, all of it, the hoopla, the glamour, the intricate science, the labyrinthine statistics. We, the ‘smart’ doctors, fall for it the hardest because all we want to do is help people, any which way. Let’s stop doing that for a start. Fools like me believed these fraudulent people and took them as groundbreaking treatments. We are nothing but enablers. But you know what? We have caught on. And pretty soon everyone else will too. So stay tuned for some disruption in these satanic nests built on trust and faith. They will implode soon.

But for that to happen we must all do something about it in our own small way. Healthcare providers often get anxious about speaking up for fear of loss of jobs, reputation, practices, licenses etc. We have duct tape on our faces. Let us all question things. Like why is marijuana not a popular drug for pharma? Why do pharmaceutical companies not spend their millions on researching medical marijuana or lobbying for it actively? Because the type with high CBD that has medicinal properties, is not money making, so no ca-ching ca-ching. The one with high THC, which is psychoactive and gives the high but has no medicinal properties, is the money-maker. Even that has very low addictive potential and believe it or not there are NO case reports of death due to overdose of marijuana – none whatsoever. On the other hand alcohol toxicity kills thousands of people every year and smoking kills 6 million every year. But still marijuana is an illegal schedule 1 drug and alcohol and cigarettes are freely available to all and sundry. Go figure.

Anecdotally, marijuana has helped thousands of people with chronic diseases like multiple sclerosis, seizure disorder, chronic pain syndromes, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Crohn’s disease, and post-traumatic stress disorder. Granted the current scientific evidence is weak. Do you know why? Because strict regulatory restrictions discourage scientists from conducting research that could be medically useful because it is a schedule 1 drug! We are letting the tail wag the dog. How are we going to know about its medicinal values if you don’t let us do the research? Because of some obsolete archaic laws that need to be modified to suit contemporary needs? Then let us mend the laws. Lest we wonder if we have done a great disservice to humanity by defaming a plant that could have saved lives. If only big pharma would consider spending big bucks on appropriate research for treating chronic diseases that exist and need more options, there would be less litigation, better health, no heartburn, and real progress in healthcare.

And here is some ‘good’ news – two days after the pink Viagra was approved by the FDA, the pharmaceutical company that made it was bought for $1 billion.

Chump change I say.