Old drug for a 'new' female disorder

Premenstrual Syndrome, or PMS -- that "once-a-month" recurring condition associated with a woman's period, nightmare of husbands and brunt of endless jokes -- is no more, claims new medical science.

Now, researchers have "found" that women have not suffered from PMS all these years. Nope.

Those women who suffer bloating, irritability and mood swings were really suffering from Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder, or PMDD. Oh.

According to WebMD.com, PMDD "is a distinct medical condition (my emphasis) that affects millions of women. It happens the week or two before your period, month after month. Its many symptoms clearly interfere with your daily activities and relationships. And left untreated it can worsen with age. …"

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I don't know about you -- and I'm not a woman, granted -- but that sure sounds like PMS to me; my wife agrees, so I figure I must be right, too.

In fact, it sounds so much like PMS, I began to wonder where this new "disorder" -- PMDD -- came from, what it was, why it is different from PMS, and, specifically, why a new drug called "Sarafem" was developed to treat it.

"While PMDD is not fully understood, many doctors believe it is caused by an imbalance of a chemical in the body called serotonin. The normal cyclical changes in female hormones may interact with serotonin, and may result in the mood and physical symptoms of PMDD," WebMD.com said.

"So although it may seem like you only suffer a few days a month, over time these days can add up to almost one quarter of your childbearing years," said the medical website.

"The good news is your doctor can now treat PMDD symptoms with a new treatment called Sarafem."

And what, you ask, is Sarafem?

By any other name, this drug would be known as Prozac. Yes, indeedy; the medicines are one and the same, for all practical purposes.

To be sure, Prozac's main claim to medical fame is that it is prescribed for "depression." Nobody knows how it works, but it works, they say.

But since Prozac was getting such a bad rap and many women did not want to be on it because it had the reputation of being prescribed only to "crazy" people, it seems as though the medical crowd decided to step in and help soothe egos, assuage consciences and relieve guilt -- as well as PMS symptoms.

Prozac, I'm told, worked well for PMS. But it … just … has that … name, you know?

Never fear. "Medical science" has American women covered; it has developed a new "disorder" -- PMDD -- to go with its "new" drug -- Sarafem -- to provide cover for the stigma of Prozac.

Harmless? Hardly; millions of women now believe PMDD is a true, new condition, and it "helps explain why I felt so crappy all those years."

"Thank God for Sarafem! Hail, medicine! I've got PMDD, so now I've got a reason to behave as badly as I do 'at that time of the month'!"

Ladies, you always had a reason. PMS was and is real -- much more real than PMDD. We males understand, and we forgive you … so put down that frying pan, OK?

Is this what "modern medicine" has come to -- preying on our weaknesses, vulnerabilities, nuances and vanity? Because that's all Sarafem and PMDD are: vanity-preservation tools. Face-saving techniques. Window dressing. Phony. Unwitting women who are having legitimate PMS-related problems have been hoodwinked by the medical industry's deceptive marketing and junk science.

Scads of doctors and "medical experts" will refute this, but the facts speak for themselves.

To recycle the WebMD.com quote, "While PMDD is not fully understood, many doctors believe it is caused by an imbalance of a chemical in the body called serotonin."

However, the medical community has long thought PMS was caused by this imbalance as well. And Prozac itself is described as one of many "members of a new anti-depressant class called the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors [SSRI]," according to the book, "Making the Prozac Decision," from the RGA Publishing Group.

Then there is this fact: The trade name for both Prozac and Sarafem is "Fluoxetine hydrochloride."

Are you beginning to put this together?

Should it matter that the same drug has been "repackaged" under a different name to treat an age-old female condition that has also been given a new name? You bet it matters. Such bait-and-switch tactics make for little trust in an industry that needs consumer confidence to maintain its legitimacy.

Besides, Americans already face a number of real medical problems as it is. We don't need the medical community inventing new ones -- complete with "new" drugs, to make it look authentic -- simply to assuage feeble consciences. "Feeling better about ourselves" should not be equated with "feeling better."

Women cannot prevent PMS and medical science cannot cure it. Tricking them into spending money on a "new treatment" for a "new disease" -- neither of which really are new -- is adding insult to injury.

The industry owes American women a big-time apology.