Word: viagra
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...careful to point out that "quality-of-life drugs are gene-based just like those for serious medical conditions. In areas like impotence, aging skin, baldness and obesity, the science is just as profound as if you were working in cancer, asthma or anti-infectives." In other words, Viagra is sober stuff and not at all akin to Sy Sperling's Hair Club...
...medical condition that affects the lives of millions of men and their partners." This is true, of course. It also speaks to the tricky questions of taste and exploitation that Pfizer will have to navigate in marketing the drug. So far, without an official launch or virtually any promotion, Viagra is doing fine. But why hold back? Advertisements will begin appearing in medical journals in about six weeks, followed by consumer ads this summer. A company spokesman says they will be "tasteful and emotional, emphasizing [impotence] as a couple's condition." One can imagine...
...Mesher's story suggests, and many doctors insist, more isn't necessarily more with Viagra. Known to chemists by the less evocative name of sildenafil (the word Viagra, redolent of both "vigor" and "Niagara," had been kicking around Pfizer for years, a brand name in search of a product), the drug began life as a heart medication designed to treat angina by increasing blood flow to the heart. Sildenafil, it turned out, wasn't so good at opening coronary arteries, but happy test subjects did notice increased blood flow to their penises, a side effect brought to Pfizer's attention...
...more nugget of possibly boring but crucial biochemistry: the erectile tissue in the penis has a finite number of receptors for cyclic GMP. This means that a normally functioning man with adequate levels of the chemical shouldn't get any more bang for his buck by gobbling Viagra; the variations anyone feels in his or her sexual response are due to factors outside the drug's purview. At the same time, Pfizer hasn't done any testing of the drug on nonimpotent men to prove the point, but it's hard to imagine that biochemical nitpicking is going to stop...
...have an erection naturally, you probably won't need Viagra," says Thomas Burnakis, pharmacy clinical coordinator at Baptist Medical Center in Jacksonville, Fla. "It's not going to make your erection harder or last longer. But I can guarantee you that if you walk in and say, 'Doc, I'm having trouble keeping my flag up,' most physicians are not going to insist on testing. What's to keep you from using it? Absolutely nothing. And just as with fen/phen, while a lot of doctors said they would not give that drug, a lot of clinics were prescribing...