Letโ€™s get one thing straight. The discovery and development of flibanserin โ€” the so-called pink Viagra โ€” by a German pharmaceutical company is not โ€œdisease mongering.โ€

The drug, which will be considered for official federal endorsement by the FDAโ€™s Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee on June 18, is indicated as treatment for female sexual dysfunction, or hypoactive sexual desire dysfunction (HSDD), and it is something of an unofficial younger sister to Viagra, which Pfizer first delivered to Americans in 1998.

But Ray Moynihan, a lecturer at the University of Newcastle in Australia and the author of the forthcoming book โ€œSex, Lies and Pharmaceuticals,โ€ thinks the drugโ€™s development smacks of disease mongering, telling The Post, โ€œPeople think they are sick when they are not. People become patients when they donโ€™t need to be.โ€