Sex, Lies, and Pharmaceuticals

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A provocative expose of the lucrative industry built around a newly constructed disorder.

Set against a backdrop of virtual intercourse, online porn, and burgeoning Viagra sales, this compelling new book reveals how women's sexual difficulties are being repackaged as symptoms of a new disease-female sexual dysfunction, or FSD. Award-winning journalist Ray Moynihan and drug assessment specialist Dr. Barbara Mintzes go inside the corridors of medical power to reveal how doctors, psychologists, and PR specialists are now working with global drug companies to promote awareness of this potentially lucrative condition and the drugs being hailed as its cure-all. Provocative and rigorous investigative journalism, Sex, Lies, and Pharmaceuticals explores the controversy about whether common sexual difficulties should be treated as medical conditions like FSD, which may be a dangerous distraction from the real problems in sexual relationships. The book also offers practical information about the risks and benefits of the latest pills and canvasses other approaches to understanding common sexual problems.

Ray Moynihan has covered the business of health care for more than a decade with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the Australian Financial Review, and the British Medical Journal. He is an award-winning journalist and the author of four books, including Selling Sickness, which has been translated into a dozen languages. Moynihan lives in Byron Bay, Australia.

Dr. Barbara Mintzes investigates the link between clinical trial evidence on drug effectiveness and provincial drug-financing decisions. She is assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Therapeutics at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.

"This book is a cautionary tale . . . the authors provide important details that connect the players. They help us understand why sexual medicine is a co-optable area that too easily converts women's legitimate complaints about unsatisfactory relationships into the need for drug treatment." -Herizons

"This book tells the truth about how Big Pharma profits from so-called FSD (female sexual dysfunction). It's an eye-opener." -Christiane Northrup