N.J. Man Uses Viagra To Boost Performance, Crashes Car, Sues Pfizer
July 28, 1998 3:56 PM
NEWARK, N.J. -(Dow Jones)- Blue streaks shooting
from the fingers of a Middlesex County man who took
Viagra for recreational use caused a car crash,
according to a lawsuit filed against Pfizer Inc., the maker
of the blockbuster impotence drug, the Associated Press
reported Tuesday.
The $110 million lawsuit appears to be the first
stemming from Viagra's vision side effect, the lawyer for
used-car salesman Joseph Moran said Tuesday.
The July 1 crash happened after Moran, 53, of
Woodbridge, was driving home after a date. Moran had
taken Viagra an hour earlier, but "never went past
necking," claimed the lawyer, Ronald R. Benjamin of
New York.
Moran said he was driving along Park Avenue in
Plainfield when he began seeing blue spots in a blue haze
and passed out.
"I'm reaching to take the cassette out of the radio, I see
like electric current lines, like lightning, going from my
fingers to the radio," Moran said. The next thing he
remembers is seeing a police officer by the window of
his totaled 1994 Thunderbird.
"When I got the police report I saw I hit two parked
cars, a sign and a tree. I didn't even know it," said
Moran, who owns City Line Auto Sales in Rahway.
Moran said he now has neck pain that makes sleep
difficult and finger numbness.
He had taken the drug about 30 times before, without
side effects, in a bid to improve his sexual performance,
Benjamin said.
Pfizer (PFE) has said it wouldn't comment on the Moran
case. The drug isn't approved as a sexual performance
enhancer.
Benjamin, who has also sued Pfizer on behalf of several
men who say Viagra caused heart attacks, said Moran is
his first client to admit taking the drug for recreational
use. He filed the lawsuit Monday in New York State
Supreme Court in Manhattan.
Moran said he wasn't aware that Pfizer cautioned that
only men suffering from impotence should take Viagra.
Moran said that his plastic surgeon wrote his Viagra
prescription.
"This is a drug that should not be on the market,"
Benjamin said. Moran has stopped taking Viagra and
the blue vision hasn't returned, the lawyer said.
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