Viagra Drug

Few men suffering from impotence admit that they have used Viagra, despite wide publicity about the best-selling drug, according to a new study. While 26% of men over 45 suffer from moderate or severe impotence, fewer than 5% of those responding to a mail survey by AARP said that they had used Viagra or any other aid to help produce erections.

Jamie Masada laughs as he recalls it: how the hottest new impotence drug had been on the market for only a day when the professional jokesters and hard-core humormeisters began injecting it into their acts. There was the young woman comedian who, with deadpanned weariness, said nothing more to the audience at Masada's Laugh Factory in Hollywood than: "My boyfriend's been taking Viagra" and drew a roar.

An elderly man has robbed a pharmacy in Marseille, France, for the fourth time in less than a year, each time taking its full stock of the anti-impotence drug Viagra, police said. Each time he appeared at closing time armed with a knife and marched the three female workers to the cupboard where they keep the blue pills, officers said. He also took the day's proceeds. Police said they did not know whether the thief was stealing the Viagra for his personal use or to resell illegally.

It is a headache for world health officials, a boon for black markets from Mexico to Egypt and the hottest idea since Charles Atlas promised to rescue skinny wretches who got sand kicked in their face. What else? Viagra. From the slums of Cairo to fashionable villas in Milan, the world has gone gaga over the anti-impotence pill. Worried authorities are cautioning that Viagra can help those with real medical needs but won't produce instant Don Juans.

A 63-year-old man who had a heart attack after using Viagra for four days sued Pfizer Inc. for $85 million in the first lawsuit against the pharmaceutical company over the impotence pill. Diego Padro, a retiree who suffers from diabetes, was stricken a day and a half after taking the last of four pills and was hospitalized for eight days. Viagra warnings are inadequate, said Ronald Benjamin, Padro's lawyer.

Life is violent, minds are frayed and the little blue pill is selling big on Sadoon Street. "People are depressed, so they need Viagra and other drugs to give them interest in sex," said Talid Abdul-Amir Shebany, a balding pharmacist who tracks the changing ailments of Iraqis in a worn ledger on his desk. "Viagra sales have at least doubled since the war ended. Lives are not good. There's bombs and tension.

The potential health dangers of the anti-impotence drug Viagra, especially for men with heart problems, may be more extensive than warnings indicate, researchers said in today's New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. P.K. Shah of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center describes two men with heart disease who experienced problems after taking Viagra. One man, 71, had received an implanted defibrillator that delivers a shock if the heart develops an abnormal rhythm.

New York and Wisconsin health officials refused Friday to go along with a federal directive that state Medicaid programs pay for Viagra, saying they aren't sure the impotence pill is safe or necessary. Officials in at least one other state, Michigan, said they are debating whether to ignore the order or brace for what they say would be an annual $14-million bill.

The federal government ordered states to cover Viagra under their Medicaid programs Thursday, infuriating many of the nation's governors, who swiftly accused U.S. health officials of costing them millions of dollars and ignoring their worries about the male impotence drug.

The maker of Viagra is accusing insurers of instilling "unnecessary fear" in consumers by refusing to pay for the impotency treatment on safety grounds. Pfizer Inc. went on the offensive Monday in an unusual confrontation with insurers that hold the power to approve or disapprove its many drugs. It was responding to Prudential HealthCare and Humana Inc. managers who said their companies would not reimburse patients for Viagra because they aren't sure it is safe.