Financier's $1 Million Will Help New Charity Case: Viagra-Needy
lan C. Greenberg bettered his own life by becoming rich on Wall Street, and yesterday he gave away $1 million of that money to better the lives of other aging men in a very specific way: He will pay for Viagra prescriptions for people who cannot afford them.
"I guess you could say I'm kind of into basics," said Greenberg, 70, the chairman of Bear, Stearns Companies, who received a $20 million bonus last year. "And I think it's something that will give a lot of pleasure to a lot of people."
Officials at the Hospital for Special Surgery in Manhattan, which will oversee Greenberg's gift, seemed dizzily baffled by the unsolicited donation, as were other health and philanthropic officials. They said they had rarely heard of gifts aimed at dispensing medicine for a specific illness, and never for the much-discussed impotence drug.
But people familiar with Greenberg, an aggressive financier and philanthropist who cultivates an air of unconventionality, might not be surprised. He once had a cameo in a Hollywood movie involving medical students and cows. He once posted a memo saying that envelopes for in-house mail could be reused several times if the sender only partly licked the flaps. Several years ago, he donated money to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem to replace their bathrooms, and commemorated the gift by installing a plaque there in honor of his brother, Maynard, who is retired and lives in Oklahoma City.
"Some people came back and said, 'We couldn't figure out if you liked your brother or hated him,'" Greenberg said. "I like him."
Greenberg said he decided on the gift only several days ago after reading articles about how some insurance companies and state health programs are denying Viagra or limiting treatment because of the cost, about $8 to $10 a pill. Both he and John R. Ahearn, co-chief executive at the Hospital for Special Surgery, said they had not yet determined how to give away the pills, except that it would be for older men under medical treatment for impotence who could not afford Viagra.
Ahearn said the hospital still had to work out the details of the $1 million endowment, and that the pills could be dispensed through urologists or centers for the elderly.
"Speaking with some physicians, they are obviously sympathetic to it," he said. "They have said this is an area where there is a need here and it is underserved and no one has paid attention to it. It is really a compassionate thing for someone to do."
Asked why he decided to start such a foundation, Greenberg responded with a few jokes: "I own stock in Pfizer," he said, referring to the drug's manufacturer. "So it's not altruistic. You can quote me on that."
He added, "If you ask me how long I've been interested in the subject, I guess you can say I've been interested in it since I was 13 or 14."
On the indelicate question of whether he used Viagra himself, he demurred.
"I'm not answering that," he said.
The New York Times, June 10, 1998
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