Sarafem, while chemically identical to Prozac, is intended expressly for the treatment of PMDD, not depression. Essentially, Sarafem allows Eli Lilly to squeeze every last cent out of fluoxetine hydrochloride. It isn't surprising that doctors are confused about women s health, and it's hardly news that pharmaceutical companies are interested in making money. With the stamp of approval from a pharmaceutical giant and the FDA, PMDD becomes, in the public's mind, a real disorder, despite objections from psychiatrist and medical literature. Women are naturally imbalanced, but Eli Lilly, pharmacist to the world, has a cure.
Women are already confused enough about their emotional health.
Statistically, women are twice as likely to report suffering from depression. Somewhere, in the back of our minds, we believe that we re already wired for mental illness. Since women believe that they shouldn't feel irritable, angry, or depressed, they are quick to blame themselves. Eli Lilly's tag line implies that the emotional and physical fluctuations of your period aren t part of you, that you're being held hostage by your own dysfunctional body. Psychiatrist Peter D. Kramer notes that the popular drugs of the moment say a lot about our society.