Equality with Viagra? We don’t know about you, but WVFC was more than a little startled to learn that there’s an organization called the “European Society for Sexual Medicine.” We’ve also been a little skeptical of all these drug-industry studies calling lack of desire a disorder, though one such study issued in January stated that women reporting less desire were “more likely to be depressed and to suffer physical symptoms such as back pain and memory problems than women who report higher levels of desire.”

Still, we suspect that today’s news about a new drug called flibanserin may fit the definition of serendipity. Science Daily quotes John M. Thorp Jr., M.D., professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine, about the surprising results of a drug being tested as an antidepressant:

“Flibanserin was a poor antidepressant,” Thorp said. “However, astute observers noted that it increased libido in laboratory animals and human subjects. So, we conducted multiple clinical trials, and the women in our studies who took it for hypoactive sexual desire disorder reported significant improvements in sexual desire and satisfactory sexual experiences. “It’s essentially a Viagra-like drug for women in that diminished desire or libido is the most common feminine sexual problem, like erectile dysfunction is in men,” Thorp said.

Of course, the piece ends with, “The trials were funded by Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, the manufacturer of flibanserin.” We’ll wait for Stage III and beyond before we ask our doctor about this one, though it’s weirdly heartening to see “female Viagra” applied to something besides chocolate.

You mean I can cancel that appointment with the pincer? Not if you’re 50. Say the word “mammogram” and most women flinch, not looking forward to annually squeezing our breasts between two plates. Well, for those of us between 40 and 5o, an annual screening is no longer considered mandatory by the Preventive Services Task Force of the Department of Health and Human Services, which two years ago urged screening for all over-40 women:

Dr. Diana Petitti, vice chairwoman of the task force and a professor of biomedical informatics at Arizona State University, said the guidelines were based on new data and analyses, and were aimed at reducing the potential harm from overscreening.

While many women do not think a screening test can be harmful, medical experts say the risks are real. They include unnecessary tests, like biopsies that can create extreme anxiety. And mammograms can find cancers that are better off not found. Some cancers grow so slowly that they never would be noticed in a woman’s lifetime. When they are found, women end up being treated unnecessarily.

Over all, the report says, the modest benefit of mammograms — reducing the breast cancer death rate by 15 percent — must be weighed against the harms. And those harms loom larger for women in their 40s, who are 60 percent more likely to experience them than women 50 and older but are less likely to have breast cancer, skewing the risk-benefit equation. The task force concluded that one cancer death is prevented for every 1,904 women age 40 to 49 who are screened for 10 years, compared with one death for every 1,339 women age 50 to 74, and one death for every 377 women age 60 to 69.

Those numbers are too low for many breast cancer advocates, such as the Susan Komen Race for the Cure,  according to The New York Times. Many are leery that the new guidelines would blur the message on screening for the disease. “Mammograms aren’t fun, and people look for excuses not to do them,” Heather Gilbert, a 64-year-old breast cancer survivor who founded Breast Cancer Solutions, a nonprofit organization in Orange County, Calif., told the newspaper. “Announcements like these will encourage way too many women not to have mammograms, flawed though they are.” And Bloomberg News noted the American Cancer Society’s skepticism:

“The task force is saying you can get 70 percent of the benefit if you get a mammogram every two years compared with every year,” said Lichtenfeld, of the American Cancer Society. “There will be women who say, ‘I want 100 percent of the benefit’.”

Kathleen O’Brien of the Newark Star Ledger (and WVFC) called the new guidelines “hogwash” in her blog today:

Here’s what’s missing from the highly scientific analysis of broad collections of mammogram data: a sense that all harms are not alike. Too much mammogramming carries harms: false negatives triggering painful biopsies, additional testing and anxiety. Yet most women would probably conclude those harms are worth enduring if they bring the slightest hope of avoiding the larger harm — the harm to end all harms — of death.”

I’ll concede I’m probably in no position to view these recommendations objectively. As a woman in my 50s whose whose tumor was spotted in an annual mammogram, I shudder to think of how much more it would’ve grown if 2009 had been a year I skipped my mammogram.

Stay tuned for more in-depth commentary from WVFC’s Medical Advisory Board.

This one’s for us, says FLOTUS: On Friday, while President Obama began his whirlwind tour of Asia and the Justice Department broke news on terrorist trials, Michelle Obama was meeting with women at the White House about health care reform. Her message? In part, it was that in particular, the bills currently before the House and Senate are designed to meet the unique health challenges women face as we grow older.

“In the individual market, people in their early 60s are more than twice as likely to be denied coverage than people in their late 30s,” Obama reminded the group. “Older women are more likely than men to face a chronic illness, but they’re less likely to be able to afford the cost of treating that illness. And in recent years, studies have shown that women over the age of 65 spend about 17 percent of their income on health care. And that’s just not right. Our mothers and grandmothers, they have taken care of us all their lives; they’ve made the sacrifices that it takes to get us where we need to be. And we have an obligation to make sure that we’re taking care of them. It’s as simple as that.”

According to the Associated Press, Obama spoke after a number of women who illustrated these statistics, in ways that grip the heart:

Before Mrs. Obama spoke, three women picked by the White House explained how they did everything they were supposed to do in the health care system, but it still failed them when they needed the coverage the most.

Kelly Adair Bollinger, 52, explained that her husband lost his job when he had a heart attack and, with that, their health insurance. The health insurance she purchased through her own job had much higher premiums and co-pays. Also, her daughter was diagnosed with a rare cancer. She was forced into bankruptcy.

“My husband and I are both masters’ educated professionals, and we have both worked full-time our adult lives in careers that gave back to our community,” said Bollinger, of Oswego, N.Y. She said if the situation can happen to “people like me, it can happen to anyone.”