WASHINGTON (AP) – How do you measure sexual desire?
If you’re a drugmaker trying to win approval for a medication to boost female libido, it might come down to two questions on a medical questionnaire. Those questions made the difference for Sprout Pharmaceuticals, which received federal approval Tuesday for Addyi, the first pill for women who suffer from a loss of sexual appetite.
But the history and development of that questionnaire – funded by drugmakers – underscores how closely the field of sexual medicine is intertwined with the pharmaceutical industry. And lends weight to arguments that low libido is just the latest commonplace sexual problem – like impotence or low testosterone – to be transformed into a medical condition by drugmakers.
“Creating a diagnosis gives a company monopoly over the market it created,” says Dr. Adriane Fugh-Berman of Georgetown University, who organized a petition urging the FDA to reject Addyi.
The questionnaire that helped push Addyi over finish line is called the Female Sexual Function Index, a 19-question form used to measure women’s sexual problems, including issues with pain, orgasm, arousal and desire. Only two questions specifically address desire, asking women to rank the level and frequency of their libido in the last month.