I have gotten a few really strange phone calls lately, from obvious Indian (eastern) call centers asking me if I have ever had a bad reaction to any drugs I've taken, or problems with surgeries, etc. It seems like those ambulance chasing land shark lawyers have outsourced the "chasing" to get the clients they need for all those BS class action lawsuits.

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2014/04/female_viagra_and_the_fda_the_agency_s_rejection_of_flibanserin_has_nothing.html

Women’s groups are calling the FDA sexist for not approving female Viagra. They are so wrong.

When the FDA denied Sprout Pharmaceutical’s bid last October to begin marketing flibanserin, a drug aimed at treating low sexual desire in women, women’s groups responded in anger. In January, representatives from eight different women’s groups, including the National Organization of Women, met with Janet Woodcock, the FDA’s head of pharmaceuticals, to protest the decision. Congress also got in on the act, with Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Chellie Pingree, Nita Lowey, and Louise Slaughter sending a letter to FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg to implore that, when evaluating drugs for female dysfunction (in medical terms Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder, or HSDD), Dr. Hamburg apply "the same standards of consideration given to the approved drugs for men in your risk/benefit evaluation."

“We’ve now got 24 drugs for men for either testosterone replacement or erectile dysfunction,” Cindy Whitehead, Sprout’s chief operating officer told the Associated Press. “Yet there are zero drugs for the most common form of sexual dysfunction in women.” Anita H. Clayton, the interim chair of the department of psychiatry and neurobehavioral sciences at the University of Virginia School of Medicine, was more explicit, writing in a blistering column for the Huffington Post: “For the millions of women with HSDD, the FDA must overcome the problem of institutionalized sexism—unconscious and perhaps unintended, but damaging nonetheless.”

The chorus was loud and clear: The FDA is sexist. The federal agency charged with approving drugs to protect and improve our health is now standing in the way of a woman’s right to have a satisfying sex life. This framing played out in numerous stories, with similar charges appearing in the American Prospect (“the FDA’s kinda sexist”), and the Washington Post (“Some critics say the agency—consciously or not—may be succumbing to society’s squeam­ishness about women’s sexual desires compared with those of men”). Not to be outdone with mere institutional sexism, a writer for the Wire mused whether “blatant, medieval sexism is also at play.”

So where did the idea that sexism it to blame for the FDA’s rejection of flibanserin come from? It appears from Sprout itself.

"Women’s groups are calling the FDA sexist for not approving female Viagra. They are so wrong."

That was an interesting article, Jerry. I couldn't help but wonder if the people protesting had actually examined whether the drug in question worked or not. It doesn't seem like it did.

Yes, I know this is the Onion, but I can't help but think that somebody's tried this.

In fact, I think the Velvet Underground addressed the issue, albeit disgustingly, in their second album.

You know, this juxtaposition is kind of clever.

Read like a mob TV show

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/investigation/al-sharpton-764312