The major household products manufacturer Procter & Gamble recently sought support from an international medical society, which it sponsors, asking the group to get involved in a regulatory hearing assessing the company's experimental testosterone patch.

No peer reviewed data on the testosterone patch have been published, but it has been granted a fast track review by the US Food and Drug Administration and will be publicly debated by an advisory panel next week. The patch is the first drug to be assessed for a controversial condition called hypoactive sexual desire disorder.

Procter & Gamble wrote to the International Society for the Study of Women's Sexual Health, whose recent conference it sponsored, urging the society to “participate” in next week's meeting …