What Doctors Don't Tell YouIt’s been hailed as the ‘Viagra for women’, likely to increase sexual activity by 74%. It’s the testosterone patch, which is already being used by 2 million men in the USA.
Proctor & Gamble, manufacturer of the patch, has won a ‘fast track’ review by the US drug watchdog, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). To help matters along, the drug company urged the International Society for the Study of Women’s Sexual Health to send someone along to testify, or at least write a supportive letter to the FDA. It just so happens that the drug company sponsored the group’s annual conference, and it also provides financial support to several of the society’s key officials.
And the claims for the product aren’t quite as Proctor & Gamble’s PR machinery would have us believe. Researchers have discovered that the ‘74% increase in sexual activity’ could translate to one or less additional sexual ‘episodes’ a month (although less than one episode a month sounds like marriage to us).
Professor Ellen Laan at Amsterdam university said: “I doubt whether this is really a big difference”, thus winning the under-statement of the month award. But no, says Prof Lorraine Dennerstein at the University of Melbourne, “if that one episode saves a relationship that can be worthwhile.” Lorraine happens to be a paid adviser to Proctor & Gamble.
And then there are the possible dangers from long-term use of testosterone, which are unknown – but are they worth the risk for that less than one additional episode a month?
(Source: Journal of Sexual Medicine, 2004; 1: 40-8).
Maryon Stewart
Daniel Redwood DC
Tom Ferguson MD