I believe this is because with Viagra you are attempting to correct something that doesn't work. With birth control you are trying to stop something that is natural. Similar to the fact that insurance generally doesn't, for instance, cover Rogaine to stop balding.
I would really like to believe that, but it just isn't true.
First of all, most ED is a natural side effect of aging. Second of all, birth control is a normal activity that most countries like ours follow. (And that's good--it'd be tough to support 8 kids for every family). I think if you read a little on the incredible battle that it took for women to get birth control pills covered, you'll see that there is more than just your theory at work here. There have also been amazing battles that women fought just to get something back to normal again. For example, the legal fights over getting an implant after having a breast removed due to cancer were bitter. Isn't this simply returning something back to normal?
I wish I could remember the name of the book I read that researched the battles fought over different coverages. Issues that only affected women were far more common and took much much longer to win than issues that only affected men. I am happy to see that trend starting to change.
You mean like the current disparity between the funding available for breast and prostate cancer research?
Prostate cancer is a slow growing cancer that usually affects men in their geriatric years. Breast cancer affects younger women and is often deadly at a faster rate. It makes more sense to put more money into the second group. (as a side note: my father has prostate cancer, my mother has breast cancer. I can say that emotionally they are both devastating. I don't wish to dismiss the problem in one group; but if we don't have money to fix everything, it makes sense to help the group that will benefit the most. In this case, getting another 40 yrs of life is worth more than another 10.)
I agree that this is the reason why we spend more on breast cancer research than prostate cancer research, and this rationale makes sense to me - but it doesn't support the contention that the claim that women's health issues have been the subject of an intentional, wide-ranging, and systematic neglect because no one cares about women, we value women's lives less and always have, the self-serving medico-patriarchy can't look beyond it's own interests, etc.
I think in most cases men simply made better "animal models" for most medical research because no one had to worry about their drug candidate turning into the next thalidomide if they included women of child bearing age in the drug study, hormonal fluctations that might complicate the analysis, etc.
Sins of omission versus sins of commission.
Well, it really is a gender issue.
And it works both ways. For example, I think it is absolutely unacceptable that men often have to sue the companies they work for in order to get paternity leave. This is a gender disparity issue that exists in the world of our "benefits package" due to cultural norms that have been allowed to live long past their time. The genders get treated differently and unfairly in many situations--and that is a sin of commission in my opinion.
Is treating genders differently always unfair in every situation?
Will this not become moot (in terms of drug research) as pharmacogenomics becomes the norm? Excepting the pregnancy angle, of course.
