There’s some restless rumblings in the media, the pharma marketplace and the blogosphere, about injecting new life into the increasingly limp sales of Pfizer’s Viagra to address the sexual side effects of anti-depressants.
Pfizer denies any interest in seeking a new usage approval for Viagra to counteract the libido-squashing side effects of SSRI anti-depressants in women.
But the world’s largest drug company did pay for a recent research project on that subject by long-time psych-drug consultant, Dr. H. George Nurnberg, of the Department of Psychiatry, University of New Mexico School of Medicine.
As an aside, in his Pharma Marketing blog on this subject, John Mack reveals that Dr. Nurnberg has served as a consultant to Pfizer, Eli Lilly, SmithKline, Bristol-Myers, and Glaxo; has received grant/research support from Pfizer, Eli Lilly, SmithKline, Bristol-Myers, Abbott, Lipha, Johnson & Johnson, Parke-Davis, and Wyeth; and has served on the speakers bureau for Pfizer, Eli Lilly, SmithKline, Bristol-Myers, Abbott, Glaxo, and Wyeth. And Dr. Nurnberg already has published papers on related Pfizer-funded research on the use of Viagra for antidepressant-associated erectile dysfunction.
Jim Edwards, in his blog on the SSRI effect on libido, says: “According to Scientific American, close to 10% of Americans are on antidepressants. Let’s make it easy and say that’s 30 million of 300 million . . .. Of those, possibly 23 million are walking around in a state of sexual frustration. And they have partners — so that’s somewhere in the neighborhood of a possible 46 million of us who are inexplicably tetchy and bad tempered on most days.”
Well, really, really bad-tempered sounds a bit more like it, for those on the SSRIs. These are the folks that break out their 12-guage and a couple of 9mm handguns and shoot up the local Wal-Mart or schoolyard. And you can bet that it’s not because they don’t feel sexy enough. But that’s a whole other subject.
John Mack expands on marketing Viagra for women: “Of that 46 million, I’d hazard a guess that 70% or 32 million are women. This is potentially a tremendously huge new market for Viagra … !”
OK, there’s a huge untapped market, but I’m a bit confused. At the About.com page on the symptoms of depression, the top two are pretty much what I would have expected:
1. Depressed Mood
A person may report feeling “sad” or “empty” or may cry frequently. Children and adolescents may exhibit irritability.
2. Decreased Interest or Pleasure
A person may show markedly diminished interest or pleasure in all, or almost all, daily activities.
Well, there it is in black and white, a good description of most of the people I know, if you catch them on the wrong day.
But if I was a modern American physician, I’d whip off a quick prescription for Zoloft, Paxil, Luvox, Prozac, Lexapro, or any other SSRI anti-depressant, and call for the next miserable patient in the waiting room, my prescription pad at the ready.
And oh, how the money would roll in.
But back to anti-depressants and sex.
First off, nobody ever feels sexy when they’re “depressed”. But nobody.
But with an anti-depressant coursing through their fevered brains, according to the literature, they’re miraculously no longer depressed.
But they still don’t feel sexy! The literature explains why: depressed libido is a side effect. Wow, now that is depressing all over again!
But wait! A couple of other side effects of anti-depressants are nymphomania and erotomania. Go figure. I guess sufferers of these side-effects are the lucky ones.
Meanwhile, most depressed people I’ve met are depressed because they aren’t “getting any” — at least not from anyone they’re actually interested in.
I know, that’s shallow.
But it’s amazing how many depressed people get rapidly un-depressed when they meet a new person who can rattle their hormones. Or even better, rattle them in a more spiritual way — such as listening to them and communicating with them — and help free them from their feelings of uselessness and entrapment in an unfulfilling life.
Meanwhile, it’s probably inevitable that some millions of the tens of millions of American women on SSRIs will soon be popping Viagra or something like it to counteract the depressing anti-libido side effects of anti-depressants. Big Pharma marketers will make sure of that.
And oh, how the money will roll in.
But you can bet we’re never going to see a drug that counteracts the serious side effects of anti-depressants — violence, mania, suicides, mass murder, obsessive sex with school children, and many other gruesome results of SSRI consumption — the kinds of side effects for which Big Pharma has already paid out billions of dollars settling law suits.
That just shows where Big Pharma’s priorities are. And how Americans — including our physicians — have bought the big psych-drug lie, and will pop yet another pill. Not to stop the killing and violence. Just to feel sexy.