Politics and marketing are endangering women’s sexual health.

Big Pharma has launched a deceptive public relations campaign called “Even the Score” to pressure the Food and Drug Administration to approve a specific drug - flibanserin - for women’s sexual problems, a drug the FDA has rejected for safety reasons twice already.

“Even the Score” claims that the FDA is sexist because “26” drugs are approved for men’s sexual problems and none for women. These numbers are false and have been debunked by publications such as Slate, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Wall Street Journal.

The public must reject the dishonest use of feminist language such as “choice” and “gender equality.”

“Even the Score” urges signing their petition that states “We believe that women have the right to make their own informed choices concerning their sexual health; that gender equality should be the standard in access to sexual dysfunction treatments.” Where is independent testing for safety and effectiveness in this proposal? Should prescription drugs simply be sold over the counter and the public told to act on “informed choices” (often informed by biased PR information)?

What does it mean to demand that “gender equality” should be “the standard in access to sexual dysfunction treatments” as opposed to the FDA’s legal standards of science-based safety and efficacy? These became the FDA’s standards as recently as 1962 because of the scandal around thalidomide and birth defects. Science-based regulation must remain at the center of the drug approval process.

Big Pharma has been looking for blockbuster sex drugs for women since Viagra was approved in 1998 - they even created a disease (“FSD – Female Sexual Dysfunction”) to do so- but the only two drugs that reached the FDA have both been judged too risky for approval.

Don’t be fooled by PR flim-flam dressed up in the language of women’s rights. Let’s support the FDA and demand that Big Pharma cancel its fraudulent PR campaigns.