text_1: 'Female Viagra' gets mixed reviews
text_2: This story reports the results of a review of the new drug for female sexual dysfunction, flibanserin (Addyi). This is the first systematic review and meta-analysis studying the impact of flibanserin in women with HSDD. The CNN coverage of this large and exhaustive study had many shortcomings starting with the headline. It is hardly a ‘mixed’ review when you compare a weighty study that found very marginal effects of the drug in nearly 6,000 women, and put that up against a single compelling anecdote of a women who says her life was turned around by the drug. It’s also questionable to give so much weight to the comments of a clinician with known ties to pharmaceutical companies that make drugs for female sexual problems (and without disclosing those relationships). This is an important piece of reporting because how a new drug performs in clinical studies on thousands of patients has a direct relevance to the women who would be encouraged to take the drug and the physicians who would want to prescribe it. Journalists need to be ultra cautious in reporting on such a ‘sexy’ topic and carefully weigh the comments of clinicians and patients who provide what seem to be ‘market-tested’ testimonials. Almost everything about the marketing and medicalization of female sexual dysfunction is controversial: the article acknowledges that controversy, but barely. Most thoughtful clinicians in this area see the problem as a multifactorial one, which may be affected by physiological changes, psychological issues, relationship factors, and/or cultural context. Any journalist weighing in on this subject must, even briefly, step back and ask: Given all these controversies, how can this study be covered in a way that readers, especially women, aren’t misled?