Back in September 2015, I wrote a blog about the Pink Pill called Addyi and the absolutely flawed science behind it. Yesterday I learned it has been pulled from the market. Previously “FDA Approved” and hailed as “female Viagra,” the article gives a detailed history of what went wrong, but fails to mention a reason that occurs with increasing frequency—the science behind the drug is flawed and manipulated.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a vaccine for teenage girls, a pill for arthritis, or the first “female Viagra”—in the race for “patentable medicine”– money for shareholders and investors is key– true research and real science blurred.
Addyi was a typical example of the modern day road travelled by new drugs entering the pipeline. Scientists come up with a hypothesis that a certain substance will act upon the human body in a certain way. A human trial is conducted to test efficacy of a product and prove the hypothesis.. The product does not do what is expected. The volunteers report that they think it helped something else. Jackpot!
The substance is now marketed as helping “something else.”
“Addyi, known to scientists as flibanserin, is thought to work by changing the balance of certain brain neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin. It was originally conceived as an antidepressant. That didn’t work, but some early clinical trials did show an increase in sex drive among women.” (from the MSM.com article, link below)
Addyi was marketed as “In clinical trials, women reported a small, but statistically significant, uptick in the number of satisfying sexual experiences per month. But in 2010 and 2013, the F.D.A. rejected the drug for that use, saying the side effects, including nausea and dizziness, outweighed the benefits”
How many “statistically significant” would that be, you ask? ONE. But I guess one is better than none. Why not try a nice glass of say, Merlot? You have to take Addyi every day and wine is a big nay-nay. It says so right there on the big black warning box (the most serious of warnings). In fact, the only way the FDA would approve Addyi after two former rejections for significant side effects, was to add the black box warning: NO ALCOHOL
And the cost? Well, funny you should ask. The cost has nothing to do with the actual cost to produce it. And that’s where the greed comes in.
“Sprout also settled on a price: $400 for a month of pills, or about the cost of a month’s worth of erectile dysfunction pills. Insurers would have difficulty denying coverage, company executives reasoned, if their product was the same price as the men’s pills. Sure enough, after the drug was approved, Anthem, one of the nation’s largest insurers, said it would cover the drug at the $400 price.”
Does this price surprise cancer survivors? More than likely it does not. This process has nothing to do with finding a treatment for improving the quality of life for humans and making it affordable and available for everyone. This process is a race to own the patent for the “first” cancer cure or the first female Viagra.
There is an incredible documentary series that begins today called The Truth About Cancer. (link below) The truth will ASTOUND you– about how we have evolved from nature’s medicine and cures—lovingly preserved and handed down from medicine men, healers, and good old grannies since the beginning of time—to manipulating natural molecules in the race for a patent to create investors and stockholders.
The series is FREE and you won’t want to miss one episode—but once you sign up, you can watch each episode for 24 hours. The science is real and the research documented.
The truth will set you free. Find yours.
Resources:
Article quoted above:
The Truth About Cancer Documentary:
https://go.thetruthaboutcancer.com/?ref=2efb8140-c901-49df-b1bb-78db2dab0d3a
My Sept.2015 article about the Pink Pill
