Authors of Sex Study Did Work for Viagra Firm

The American Medical Assn. admitted Wednesday that its journal failed to disclose that the authors of a sex study had been paid for other research by the maker of the drug Viagra.

A study in Wednesday’s edition of the Journal of the American Medical Assn. reported that a large percentage of American men and women experienced sexual dysfunction.

The journal did not point out that Edward Laumann, a University of Chicago sociologist and the lead author of the study, and his co-author, Raymond Rosen, had been paid by Pfizer Inc. to review clinical trial data on Viagra before the impotency drug was submitted for government approval.

In an Associated Press story, Laumann was quoted as saying the study “gives us a base for explaining why we had this enormous response to Viagra.”

Dr. Phil Fontanarosa, an editor of the journal, said the connection would be noted in a subsequent issue.

“It was an oversight on the part of JAMA,” AMA spokesman Scot Roskelley said. “The authors did disclose it. The person who was looking at it just didn’t catch it.”