Pfizer’s Viagra - Tenth Anniversary of Little Blue Pill

Viagra - the little blue pill celebrating its 10th birthday - continues to pack a potent punch, and not only in the bedroom. It and other erectile dysfunction drugs have become ingrained in pop culture and, as a result, may be changing how a nation of men thinks and acts on issues of health.

Viagra, developed by accident by scientists at Pfizer Laboratories, was first approved for use by the US Food and Drug Administration on March 27, 1998. Since then, 35 million men have popped a Viagra. It’s unclear how many men are getting prescriptions for ED drugs from a physician, versus buying pills from one of the plethora of Internet sites that advertise them. Either way, they’re being bought and used. In 2007, combined sales of Viagra, Levitra and Cialis totaled more than $3 billion. Viagra also is now approved for treating pulmonary hypertension.

Two other oral drugs, Cialis and Levitra, joined the lucrative ED market five years later, promising to do the job even better and for longer than their trailblazing counterpart.

Stats on ED:

• Thirty million men in the United States have erectile dysfunction, according to an estimate reported this month, and the number is expected to double by 2025.

• Erectile dysfunction often appears in combination with other chronic health conditions. About half of men with diabetes and about half of those with heart disease also have ED, UCLA urologist Christopher Saigal and his colleagues reported in 2006. More than a third of men with high blood pressure have ED, they found.

• Researchers have also found that men with ED often have diabetes, heart disease, and other medical problems. A large study published last year found that 20 percent of men with ED had diabetes compared with 7.5 percent of the men who didn’t have ED. In many cases, those ailments haven’t yet been diagnosed when the man seeks out Viagra or another treatment for his sexual problem.

Continue Reading —>

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• A boost for women’s low libido? - Los Angeles Times
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• [Systemic approach to investigation of levitra efficacy in patients with chronic prostatitis with erectile dysfunction]