Today a major pharmaceutical company announced that preliminary studies of an antidepressant call Flibanserin suggest that the drug helped premenopausal women experience more sexual desire and greater sexual satisfaction.

The announcement created the usual cascade of media attention generated when the topic is sex–especially when it is made by a powerful pharmaceutical company with a rich budget for PR.  Make no mistake, image is going to be a huge factor in how the company will be able to market and sell the drug to women.

This brief article and interview with Dr. Jennifer Ashton on CBS seems pretty balanced.  Dr. Ashton mentions that for women the topic of low sexual desire is complex.  There’s a lot more to it than “plumbing,” as it seems to be for men who have Viagra and other PDE5 inhibitors to help them out.  That’s an important distinction, because the media is calling Flibanserin “female Viagra.”  It sounds like an apt analogy, but isn’t really.  PDE5 inhibitors work to keep blood in the penis.  This new drug for women is a psychotropic medication, meaning that it works on the brain.

Another balanced article appears here, in which two OB/GYNs discuss the pros and cons of medication.

On some level, this reminds me of what initially occurred when Prozac came on the scene.  Many people that took it felt that it enhanced their personality, and this caused a discussion of so-called designer or lifestyle drugs.  Is Flibanserin a lifestyle drug?  What do you think?

I can understand a need for the drug.  Sometimes women undergo medical treatments or have life events that truly seem to throw them so out of balance that they cannot recover their sex drive.  For example, recovering one’s libido after a severe bout of post partum depression is very difficult, so an antidepressant that works specifically on drive has a certain attractive quality.

My concern is that the medication be touted not as a cure all, but as an adjunct to psychotherapy, or as a second line treatment when psychotherapy has been attempted but failed.  Take the example of post partum depression.  Certainly it has a hormonal component, but it is always much more complicated than that, often having to do with a woman’s identity, her relationships, her own needs vs. the needs of her infant, and so on.  Can one pill really do so much?  Would it be better to look within, in the context of counseling, to understand the root cause and further one’s own development, or to take a pill and skip that part altogether?

What do you think?  If this drug is ever approved, should ads be plastered all over TV, like ads for ED drugs?  Or should ads be limited to a select audience of women, e.g., placed in publications for mothers of children under the age of 5.  Canada doesn’t allow drug advertising, but we do.

What do you think?  I’d love to read comments.

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