‘Female Sexual Dysfunction’ – is it Real or Did the Pharmaceutical Industry Make it up?
February 26, 2010
Natural News
By David Gutierrez
The pharmaceutical industry is attempting to convince the public that a variety of normal conditions affecting the majority of women should be classified as “female sexual dysfunction” and treated with drugs.
The medical establishment has a long history of treating the female body as sexually dysfunctional, from when Hippocrates first attributed “hysteria” to a wandering uterus. According to JoAnn Wypijewski, former senior editor of The Nation, this perspective fell out of favor with the sexual revolution of the 1970s but has since re-emerged.
“Today the cultural air is thick with sex, but the rhetoric of freedom and rights largely serves a commodified notion of sexual satisfaction,” Wypijewski said. “The politics has dropped out, and without politics we’re all just … potential patients.”
A 2005 article in the medical journal BMJ noted the emergence of drugs intended to treat “female sexual dysfunction.” In spite of skepticism from the medical establishment, the pharmaceutical industry has pressed ahead, insisting that conditions such as an inability to regularly achieve orgasm through intercourse alone, low levels of sexual desire, and sexual dissatisfaction are medical disorders in need of treatment.
All these conditions are normal for women at various points throughout their lives. Yet proponents of the label “female sexual dysfunction” claim that anywhere from 43 percent to 70 percent of women are actually ill; Oprah has called it as an “epidemic.”
The cure, according to the pharmaceutical industry, is testosterone treatment or other drugs. Meanwhile, Wypijewski notes that rates of “vaginal rejuvenation” (tightening) among middle-aged women and “laser labiaplasty” (reshaping of the labia) among younger women continue to rise. A doctor in North Carolina even offers to implant an electrode in women’s spinal columns to help them achieve orgasm during sex.
“Female sexual dysfunction, it turns out, was wholly created by drug companies,” Wypijewski said. “The more obstinate question is … whether a resistant politics can grow up to say … ‘We want out’ of the profit system and … out of a medical model that elevates a doctor over … a more sensual ease with oneself and others.”
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Convicted Man Disputes HIV Risk
February 12, 2010
Winnepeg Sun
By Dean Pritchard
An HIV-positive man convicted of not disclosing his health status to his sex partners is seeking to overturn his 14-year prison sentence, arguing he posed no significant health risk to the victims.
Clato Mabior was convicted in 2008 of six counts of aggravated sexual assault in relation to six victims and one count each of sexual touching and sexual interference.
Mabior appeared Wednesday before the Manitoba Court of Appeal, where his lawyer Ian McNair argued Mabior’s “viral load” was so low his sex partners were at no significant risk of infection.
But what constitutes a significant risk, countered Crown attorney Liz Thompson.
“If one complainant is infected, can you say to them ‘Well, the chance was one in 100,000, so you’re out of luck?’
“We’re not criminalizing people with HIV,” Thompson said. “We’re saying as a person, you cannot put anybody in harm’s way.”
One of Mabior’s victims was 12-years-old at the time of the offences and three were 17. None of his victims have been diagnosed with HIV.
McNair said Mabior used a condom every time he had sex with two of the victims.
At the time of his March 2006 arrest, police believed as many as 45 girls and women may have been victimized by him. He stood trial in relation to 11 alleged victims.
Prior to his arrest, the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority issued a public warning Mabior was defying medical advice about his HIV and knowingly having sex with unsuspecting partners.
Police said they believed Mabior had been luring runaways to his Sherbrook Street home with the promise of intoxicants and a place to stay. At his trial, court heard Mabior plied some of his victims with alcohol and drugs.
At his sentencing, Mabior was credited five years for time served. His remaining sentence is just under 71/2 years.
Mabior is from Sudan and is expected to be deported once he has served his sentence.
The appeal court reserved its decision.
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HIV Vaccine Infects 46 in Zambia
January 14, 2010
AllAfrica.com
By Elias Mbao
The Microbicides Development Programme (MDP) 301 trial, which was testing if the gel PRO2000 would prevent HIV infection took place between September 2005 and 2009.
It was conducted at six research centres in South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia and 9,385 participated.
From the Zambian site in Mazabuka district – about 160 kilometres South West of the capital Lusaka – 1, 332
HIV negative women were recruited but the results, which the Ministry of Health does not wish to comment on, revealed that between 46 and 50 of women that participated in the clinical trial contracted HIV despite using PRO2000 gel before sex.
“Some participants did become HIV positive because the study was conducted in the normal environment,” confirmed Dr Maureen Chisembele, principal investigator for Microbicides Development Programme Zambia – a subsidiary of the UK based research entity.
“Women who became infected during the study were given further counselling and referred to local health services for ART (antiretroviral therapy).”
The National Aids Council of Zambia (NAC), a government unit mandated to oversee HIV/Aids programme, confirmed that 50 out of the 1, 332 women that participated in the clinical trials contracted HIV.
Due to the sensitivity and repercussions of the issue, the Ministry of Health has remained tight-lipped on the outcome of the trials.
A vaginal microbicide is a product intended for use before sexual intercourse to reduce HIV infection and they are supposed to be used with condoms and complement other prevention strategies such as behaviour change, abstinence and other preventive methods.
It should be noted that vaginal microbicide should not be used alone or replace correct and consistent use of condoms in the fight against HIV and Aids, said Dr Swebby Macha – a gynaecologist at Zambia’s University Teaching Hospital (UTH) in Lusaka, the largest hospital in the country.
The participants in the clinical trial were either assigned the PRO2000 gel or placebo gel (with inactive ingredient) and were instructed to apply gel about one hour before sexual intercourse.
The gel contains molecules that are intended to cluster around the virus before it can penetrate the vaginal wall.
To be effective, the women were counselled on safe sexual behaviour and encouraged to use condoms, which were provided free of charge.
According to Dr Macha, this clinical trial found that the risk of HIV infection in women that were supplied with PRO2000 gel was not significantly different than women supplied with placebo gel.
“The largest international clinical trial to date into a preventive HIV gel has found no evidence that the vaginal microbicide, PRO2000, reduces the risk of HIV infection in women,” said Dr Macha, the former president of Zambia Medical Association (ZMA).
Dr Macha said to date no microbicide had been proved to be effective against HIV infection.
A local traditional ruler has demanded compensation for the infected women and prosecution of architects of the clinical trial.
Chief Mwanachingwala of the Tonga people in Mazabuka district where the clinical trials took place said the women that took part in the trials were “poor and uneducated” and did not know the consequences of the research, which has left some of them infected.
But Ministry of Health officials, speaking on anonymity basis, argued that MDP followed the laid down legal and clinical procedures, therefore, were not liable to prosecution over the outcome of clinical trials.
In an explanatory statement, Dr Chisembele said that during the clinical trial, a lot of emphasis was put on the fact that it was unknown whether PRO2000 gel would work to prevent HIV.
The infection of the 46 women has drawn outrage from many Zambians who are accusing MDP of using some African women as “guinea pig” because they are poor and ignorant.
Zambia is among African countries hardest hit by Hiv infections with prevalence rate of 14.3 per cent of its population estimated at about 13 million people.
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Study: Sex Fights Heart Disease in Men
January 11, 2010
FoodConsumer.org
By David Liu
Making love twice a week or more often helps reduce risk of heart disease in men, a study published in the American Journal of Cardiology suggests.
The study led by researchers at the New England Research Institute in Massachusetts found an association between frequent intercourse and reduced risk of heart disease.
The researchers followed up 1,000 men aged 40 to 70 who participated in the Massachusetts Male Aging Study, which began in 1987, for 16 years to examine the correlation between sexual activity and heart health.
They found men engaged in regular lovemaking were up to 45 percent less likely to develop life-threatening heart disease compared to those had sex once a month or less.
The association was significant even after other risk factors like age, weight, blood pressure and cholesterol levels were considered.
This is an association, not necessarily a cause and effect relationship even though there is such a possibility, a health observer cautioned. Healthier men tend to have stronger desire and manhood to make love more frequently in the first place.
However, lovemaking is a type of physical activity which can nurture a couple’s supportive relationship which in turn would improve health through stress reduction and social support.
Sexual activity is also related to the diet men use. To reduce sexual temptation and avoid unquenchable sexual desire, monks do not use meat-based foods, which would otherwise provide them with more nutrients than plant-based foods that their reproductive systems need.
The findings do not mean that men should jump start making love more frequently than they are able to to prevent heart disease. Instead, they suggest that physicians may assess a man’s heart health based on his sexual activity.
Those who want to have more fun from making love may consider using a good diet to support their nutrition need. Eating plenty of lean meat and fish is the basic requirement. Men may experience shooting blanks if they do not have intake of protein and other micro-nutrients.
Foods like vitamin C rich foods, peanut, garlic, fatty fish, strawberries, seafood like crab and shrimps among others help men to boost their performance in bed, according to previous reports.
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Minnesota Man Claims He Took Drugs & Had Sex with Barack Obama in 1999
November 24, 2009 by Andrew
Filed under Government
November 24, 2009
The Cleveland Leader
Barack Obama now faces a new challenge – one that is sure to be much more scandalous than anything he’s seen so far. If the allegations are to be believed, it’s also a scandal that his campaign has tried to cover up. A Minnesota man has come forth, claiming that he took cocaine in 1999 with Obama, the then-Illinois legislator, and participated in homosexual acts with him.
Larry Sinclair, the man making the claims, said his story was ignored by the news media. Still not willing to let this one slip quietly under the rug, Sinclair made a YouTube video in which he made his case. It’s had over half a million views already, but the story has still been largely ignored by the news media.
Sinclair’s next step was to file a suit in Minnesota District Court, in which he alleges threats and intimidation by the Democratic presidential candidate’s staff.
Still out to prove that he is telling the truth, Sinclair said he is willing to submit to a polygraph test. A website (WhiteHouse.com) has come forth offering him $10,000 for the right to record the polygraph test, and another $100,000 if he passes it.
Sinclair lives in Duluth, Minnesota, and in his filing, charges that his civil rights have been violated by Barack Obama and the Democratic Party. Obama, David Axelrod of AKP Message & Media in Chicago, and the Democratic National Committee have been named as defendants in the case.
Sinclair, who describes himself as gay, claims they met in an upscale Chicago lounge. They left in Sinclair’s limo, where the drug use and sex allegedly took place for the first time. Sinclair says that Obama smoked crack cocaine, and that he snorted powder cocaine provided by Obama.
Sinclair, 46, says that he no longer uses drugs. He claims to be physically disabled, but says that he was not physically impaired in 1999 when they met.
Regarding the claims, Sinclair said:
“My motivation for making this public is my desire for a presidential candidate to be honest. I didn’t want the sex thing to come out. But I think it is important for the candidate to be honest about his drug use as late as 1999.”
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Annual Pap Smears Thing of the Past?
November 20, 2009
ABC News
By Lauren Cox and Dr. Joshua Hundert
Pap smears may no longer be called “annuals” if doctors follow new cervical cancer screening recommendations from the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
The group announced today that women should start getting cervical cancer screenings at age 21 instead of 18, and that women could wait longer between the screenings — regardless of when a woman starts having sex.
Women in their 20s with normal Pap smear results now should get screenings every two years instead of every year, and women in their 30s can wait three years between screenings, according to the new ACOG guidelines.
After a week of uproar over the controversial recommendations for less mammogram screenings for women, doctors say they will have to wait and see how the public reacts to the new pap smear guidelines.
“This is not a radical change in screening practices. This is something that’s been coming gradually since the 1980s,” said Dr. Alan G. Waxman, who helped write the new guidelines.
Some doctors hailed the decision as a way to reduce a host of problems caused by excessive screening; yet, a few others worried it might trigger more women to neglect annual checkups with gynecologists.
Waxman said the move toward fewer screenings will reduce unnecessary treatment in young women and protect them from future pregnancy complications.
On one hand, college-aged women have very high HPV infection rates. Dr. John Curtin, of The Cancer Institute at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City said 70 percent of all college-aged sexually active people have contracted HPV. These high infection rates translate into a high number of abnormal pap smears.
More Benefits of vitamin D – Treatment for Prostate Cancer
November 19, 2009
Natural News
By David Gutierrez
(NaturalNews) Treatment with vitamin D supplements may slow the progress of prostate cancer, according to a study published in the journal BJU International.
In the United States, prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death among men, after lung cancer. Approximately 240,000 new cases are diagnosed every year, leading to 30,000 deaths.
Researchers have suspected for nearly two decades that the so-called “sunshine vitamin” may play a role in the risk and progression of prostate cancer, but no studies have previously been conducted on its usefulness as a treatment.
“It’s very interesting – there has been no significant trial of vitamin D,” said lead researcher Jonathan Waxman of Imperial College London. “This is a treatment which is unlikely to have significant toxicity and is a welcome addition to the therapeutic options for patients with prostate cancer.”
Waxman decided to do the study when he learned of a prostate cancer patient who recovered after his wife bought vitamin D pills for him. Waxman and colleagues recruited 26 men with prostate cancer and assigned them each to take a daily vitamin D supplement. In five of the men, reductions in levels of the prostate specific antigen (PSA) were reduced.
In men with prostate cancer, PSA levels are an indicator of disease severity. One participant experienced a decrease in PSA levels less than 25 percent, two experienced decreases of between 25 and 50 percent, and two experienced decreases of more than 50 percent. In one of the participants, PSA levels remained reduced for a full 36 months.
Vitamin D is synthesized by the body upon exposure to ultraviolet (UV) radiation from sunlight. It plays a critical role in calcium absorption and bone health, and deficiency in the vitamin can lead to rickets in children and osteoporosis in adults. Recent research has also suggested that vitamin D can help prevent autoimmune disorders and a variety of chronic diseases, including diabetes, heart disease and cancer. Some scientists have stated that if everyone increased the amount of time they spent in the sun, far more lives would be saved from cancers prevented than would be lost from increased skin cancer cases.
A light-skinned person can get enough vitamin D from getting 15 minutes of sun on the face and hands each day, while a darker skinned person might need up to 45 minutes. More sun exposure is needed at more extreme latitudes.
A connection between vitamin D and prostate cancer was first suggested in 1990, when researchers suggested that the vitamin might tie together a variety of observed risk factors for the disease. A wide body of research has demonstrated that prostate cancer risk is higher at northern latitudes (where people get less vitamin D), among older people (with reduced vitamin D synthesis) and black people (who absorb less UV rays). Researchers have also found that men diagnosed with prostate cancer in the summer or autumn, when vitamin D levels tend to be highest, have a better prognosis than men diagnosed in winter or spring.
In 1992, researchers also suggested that higher vitamin D consumption in Japan might account for lower rates of prostate cancer there, relative to the United States. Japanese men consume more fatty fish, which is high in both vitamin D and omega-3 fatty acids that increase the vitamin’s stability in the body, and soy, which slows the rate at which bodily vitamin D breaks down.
Since then, studies have found that many prostate cancer cells contain vitamin D receptors, and that vitamin D can inhibit the growth of some of these cells.
Researchers also hypothesize that vitamin D might inhibit the action of the androgen receptor, which produces male sex hormones that have been linked to the disease.
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STDs on Rise According to CDC
November 16, 2009
Reuters
By Maggie Fox
American squeamishness about talking about sex has helped keep common sexually transmitted infections far too common, especially among vulnerable teens, U.S. researchers reported Monday.
Latest statistics on chlamydia, gonorrhea and syphilis show the three highly treatable infections continue to spread in the United States.
“Chlamydia and gonorrhea are stable at unacceptably high levels and syphilis is resurgent after almost being eliminated,” said John Douglas, director of the division of sexually transmitted diseases at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“We have among the highest rates of STDs of any developed country in the world,” Douglas added in a telephone interview.
The administration of President Barack Obama has signaled a willingness to move away from so-called abstinence-only sex education approaches promoted by his predecessor, George W. Bush, and conservative state and local governments.
Several studies have shown such approaches do not work well and that it is better to encourage abstinence while also offering children and teens information about how to protect themselves from diseases as well as pregnancy.
“We haven’t been promoting the full battery of messages,” Douglas said. “We have been sending people out with one seatbelt in the whole car.”
SOARING RATES
The CDC’s latest study on STDs found:
* 1.2 million cases of chlamydia were reported in 2008, up from 1.1 million in 2007.
* Nearly 337,000 cases of gonorrhea were reported.
* Adolescent girls 15 to 19 years had the most chlamydia and gonorrhea cases of any age group at 409,531.
* Blacks, who represent 12 percent of the U.S. population, accounted for about 71 percent of reported gonorrhea cases and almost half of all chlamydia and syphilis cases in 2008.
* Black women 15 to 19 had the highest rates of chlamydia and gonorrhea.
* 13,500 syphilis cases were reported in 2008, an almost 18 percent increase from 2007.
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BPA and Male Sexual Dysfunction
November 12, 2009
ABC News
By Joseph Brownstein
While environmental groups have sounded the alarm about the presence of bisphenol-A, or BPA, in products such as infant formula, baby bottles and other plastics, a new study provides some of the first evidence that the chemical can be harmful to humans, linking it to sexual dysfunction in men in high doses.
Researchers looked at 550 factory workers in China, some of whom were exposed to BPA as part of their job, and found that men who worked with BPA were four times more likely than their counterparts who did not work with the chemical to report some level of sexual dysfunction.
“The study certainly provides the human evidence to confirm animal studies, but one study is not going to answer any questions,” said Dr. De-kun Li, the study’s lead author and a reproductive and perinatal epidemiologist at Kaiser Permanente’s Division of Research in Oakland, Calif.
Li noted that while BPA’s presence has been confirmed in a number of consumer products, all studies before now had only shown harm in nonhuman populations.
“Up to this point, it’s largely, basically animal studies,” said Li, explaining that little has been done about BPA because of a lack of studies in people.
“There has been no human studies, at least in the context of the male reproductive system, so this has been dismissed by some critics,” he said of the potential harms BPA may pose.
But Li acknowledged that the current study will likely do little to change policy, since the levels of BPA were much higher than those encountered by the average person in his or her daily life. The average worker exposed to BPA had levels roughly 50 times higher than the average person.
“At this point … we don’t know the safety of the lower level,” he said, but noted that people do not need to worry too much. “We don’t have to be alarmed and go crazy.”
In the study, 15.5 percent of men exposed to BPA complained of erectile dysfunction more than half of the time, while only 4.4 percent of men not exposed to BPA had the same complaint. Meanwhile, 13.9 percent of men with BPA exposure on the job complained of difficulty ejaculating, while only 2.5 percent of men without the on-the-job BPA exposure had the same complaint.
While previous reports on BPA have relied heavily on animal studies, none have promoted a ban on the substance.
The National Toxicology Program, part of the National Institutes of Health, considers BPA to be a substance of “some concern” — the third level of a five-part scale ranging from “serious concern” to “negligible concern.”
“There are insufficient data from studies in humans to reach a conclusion on reproductive or developmental hazards presented by current exposures to BPA, but there is limited evidence of developmental changes occurring in some animal studies at doses that are experienced by humans. It is uncertain if similar changes would occur in humans, but the possibility of adverse health effects cannot be dismissed,” the agency writes about BPA in its factsheet.
It is unclear exactly how BPA would cause sexual dysfunction, according to Dr. Michele Marcus, a professor and interim chair in the department of epidemiology and environmental health at Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health. One possible explanation, she said, is that BPA, a known endocrine disruptor, can mimic estrogen and block some effects of testosterone.
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Going too Far? Cosmetic Surgery on Female Genitalia
November 12, 2009
BBC News
Research published in the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology also questions the very notion of aesthetically pleasing genitals.
Operations to improve the appearance of the sex organs for both psychological and physical reasons are on the rise.
But surgeons said the report overplayed the risks of an established procedure.
Researchers from University College London reviewed all the existing studies on cosmetic labial surgery – which generally involves reducing the amount of tissue that protrudes from the lips which cover the vagina. They found there had been little work to document any longer-term side effects.
Labioplasty, as it is known, costs about £3,000 privately and is offered for a variety of reasons: some women complain that wearing tight clothes or riding a bike is uncomfortable, while others say they are embarrassed in front of a sexual partner.
But consultant gynaecologist Sarah Creighton and psychologist Lih-Mei Liao challenged the ethics of offering women surgery to address such insecurities, suggesting it was adverts for a “homogenised, pre-pubescent genital appearance” which created these anxieties in the first place.
They also suggested that any pain apparently caused by protrusion may well have a psychological root – noting that male genitalia protrude far further without causing major discomfort.
Counselling and support could therefore be a preferable alternative to surgery, they argue.
Female circumcision
The number of women undergoing labioplasty nationwide is unknown as the majority of the operations are performed privately, but last year procedures on the NHS increased by 70% on the previous year to 1,118.
In studies dating back to 1950, examined by the researchers, dissatisfaction with the way the vagina looked was the primary reason for surgery, with patients also speaking of low self-esteem and sexual difficulties.
But rather than curing sexual problems, Dr Creighton suggested surgery might exacerbate them by damaging the nerve supply to the area, impairing sexual sensitivity and satisfaction.
She also suggests that women who undergo this procedure might experience similar problems in childbirth as those who have experienced female genital mutilation, in which parts of the vagina are ritualistically removed.
It is now well documented that women who have undergone such circumcision are more likely to experience significant tearing and bleeding after labour and even the death of their babies, problems which are overcome by Caesarean delivery.
“Labial surgery needs to be rigorously evaluated in future, and for longer term,” said Dr Creighton.
“Furthermore, quality research is needed to improve our understanding of the psychological drivers behind women’s decision to sacrifice sexually sensitive tissue that contributes to erotic experiences, for a certain genital appearance that used to be an obligation only for some glamour models.”
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