Major article in this week's Newsweek.
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Around the world, approved or not, the little blue pill is a social phenomenon: the hottest new drug in history. Is this a good thing?
By Russell Watson
Rashid Gabdullin is only 32 years old, and he claims he's never had any complaints about his sexual performance. So when Gabdullin, a reporter for a Russian newspaper, tried the new anti-impotence drug Viagra, it was as a service to his readers. One dose did nothing for him, apart from inspiring "warm romantic feelings and a desire to meet a nice girl and take her to dinner," he wrote in the daily Komsomolskaya Pravda, which employs him as a correspondent in Central America. Only after he swallowed a double dose did the drug "work," he said. Gabdullin rushed out of his apartment, looking frantically for female company. Instead, he got stuck, alone, in a broken-down elevator. When he was set free, two hours later, the Viagra effect had faded away.
By now, Viagra is a global phenomenon. Introduced in the United States barely two months ago, the blue, diamond-shaped pill made by Pfizer Inc. is the hottest new drug in history almost everywhere in the world, including many countries where it's not yet legal for sale. Not since "sputnik" has a new word entered so many languages so quickly. In Mexico, humorists say Viagra means "the old lady is grateful," from the words vieja and agradecida. In Italy, enterprising marketers have come up with nonmedicinal "pizza Viagra" (topped with hot chili peppers), "gelati Viagra" (a blue ice cream that tastes like vanilla) and "formaggio Viagra" (a disappointingly soft cheese).
The news media are full of glowing, if unscientific, endorsements. Brazilian columnist Paulo Sant'Ana, a 58-year-old grandfather, took the pill on two occasions and described the results as "incessant, pleasurable" and so long-lasting that he stopped making love only when his partner begged for a rest. "Viagra won't let you down," he says. Former Italian soccer player Stefano Tacconi, 41, said the pill produced a duration of "twice as long as usual." But he said he wouldn't use the drug again because it takes the "poetry" out of sex.
In Jakarta, a Pfizer executive says he received a call from a man identifying himself as an official at Cendana, the residence of former Indonesian president Suharto. The caller asked for 100 Viagra tablets to be sent to the home of the 77-year-old ex-president. The Pfizer man told the caller Viagra was not yet approved in Indonesia and that the company had no supply on hand. He tactfully promised to do what he could. The next day, the Cendana official called back, telling the executive not to bother. "We've already got some in from the U.S.," he explained.
Currently, Viagra is legally available only in the United States, Brazil, Morocco and Mexico. It's coming soon to Colombia, South Africa and Thailand, and many other governments are rushing it through the approval process. Already there's a booming black market and a brisk traffic in counterfeit Viagra, some of which is nothing more than flour and cornstarch. There's also a gray market that uses telephone lines and the Internet to leap over national boundaries and legal technicalities. Computer users click onto Web sites like www.thepillbox.com, where Viagra is "this month's special." In Israel, a number obtained from a local newspaper ad reaches a telephone in Brooklyn, N.Y., where a man offers 10 pills for $280. The pills will be delivered anywhere in Israel within 24 hours, he says, and if a caller asks about the legality of the transaction, he growls: "Look, do you want it or not?"
Most callers do. Desperate, horny or merely curious, millions of men around the world are redrawing the romantic road map, hoping to find a pharmaceutical fountain of youth. The German tabloid Bild predicts that Viagra "can set off a sexual revolution, just like the anti-baby pill did 30 years ago." The implicit promise of Viagra--one not endorsed by its manufacturer--is good sex for all: old or young, gay or straight, male or female. "Henceforth the world will move for everyone," novelist Howard Jacobson writes in Britain's Evening Standard.
Maybe not. There are risks to buying Viagra, especially without a prescription and a medical exam. Pfizer says the drug is safe when used by the clinically impotent patients for whom it was intended. But all of the anecdotal evidence suggests that the current fad is more recreational than therapeutic, and for some, that could be fatal. So far, 16 deaths have been reported in the United States, among men 48 to 80. According to a report by the Food and Drug Administration, many of the victims had cardiovascular disease--making sex risky--and at least three were on nitroglycerin, a heart medicine that can be fatal when mixed with Viagra.
The blue pill is not an aphrodisiac. It increases the flow of blood to the genitals, causing or sustaining a male erection. But that's not a guarantee of great sex. "The magic bullet is no substitute for romance," says Dr. Leung Ying-kit, a sexologist who hosts a radio talk show in Hong Kong. "A poor lover plus Viagra does not make a good lover, but merely a poor lover with an erection." Some experts worry that Viagra will promote sex crimes. In Florida last week, an 89-year-old man was arrested for allegedly using a crowbar to club a 34-year-old woman who resisted his Viagra-fueled advances. "The whole thing is a big lie," he said.
Organized religion seems to be of two minds about Viagra: it can promote sin, or it can preserve marriages. The Vatican pharmacy says it doesn't sell the drug, but some Roman Catholic leaders cautiously endorse it. "If [Viagra] contributes to the healthy development of holy matrimony and is done with medical guidance, it is welcomed," Archbishop Roman Arrieta of Costa Rica said two weeks ago. "The Muslim clerics have blessed it, and the rabbis have blessed it," says Yaakov Katz, an official in Israel's Health Ministry. Although the drug probably won't be approved for sale in Israel for another two or three months, Rule 29C of the health code allows exceptions to be made on a "compassionate basis," says Katz. Since Viagra was introduced, Rule 29C cases have tripled in number. "Men in Israel are so stupid," says Orly Chen, who runs an impotence clinic in Jerusalem. "They don't even care if they die from it," she says, "as long as the sex is good."
In many countries, even legal Viagra sells for two or three times the U.S. price of $10 a pill. In some remote corners of Latin America, black-market prices as high as $175 a pill have been reported. In Germany, where the drug is not yet approved, supplies can be ordered from abroad at a cost of $500 for 30 pills. When customers hear the price--and learn that it isn't covered by health insurance--they usually lose interest, pharmacists report.
The global marketplace is flooded with cheaper alternatives. In Egypt, pharmacists sell a mixture of herbs, ginseng and royal jelly from beehives for only $10, calling it "Viagra for the poor." Third World markets offer a huge array of traditional sex-enhancers: powdered crocodile penis in Indonesia, lizard oil in India, an alleged Spanish-fly aphrodisiac for women in Mexico ("Slip it in her drink, she'll never know what hit her," says the packet). Then there are the counterfeits of Viagra; investigators have identified two producers in Europe and one in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley.
To give its customers a shot at the real thing, a travel agency in Japan offers Viagra Tours to Guam or Hawaii, where the drug can be purchased legally. A three-night trip to Hawaii costs $1,379, including a doctor's exam and two bottles of Viagra. So far, 25 Japanese men, mostly in their 50s, have taken the trip. Traffic is brisker across North American borders. Canadian men, who still can't buy the drug at home, are slipping across their southern frontier to shop for Viagra. "You could call it Vermont's No. 1 export," a urologist in Colchester told a reporter.
Although the sale of Viagra has been approved in Mexico, druggists in cities like Tijuana still cut corners. When a NEWSWEEK reporter visited more than two dozen pharmacies there last week, only five of them demanded the prescription required by law. "You need a prescription, but we don't make you show it to us," said one druggist. Pills made by Pfizer in Mexico were sold for $11.50 each; stronger pills made in the United States were available in some places, illegally, for $18 apiece.
Pharmacists say Viagra is more popular with foreign visitors than with Mexicans. "There is a pride factor among Mexican gentlemen who come to me for Viagra," says Dr. Eduardo Partida, a Tijuana physician. "They don't want to admit, many of them, that they have any sexual problems. Many of them tell me they are coming in for a friend or a relative." Viagra may not solve all of their sexual problems; lovemaking is more complicated than just achieving an erection. But on this Big Blue Planet, that's not a message that is likely to sink in with millions of eager Viagra men.
With Ron Moreau in Jakarta, Andrew Nagorski in Berlin, Mark Dennis in Jerusalem, Jamie Reno in Tijuana, Avani Mehta in New York and bureau reports
Newsweek 6/22/98 International/ Sex: The Globe Is Gaga for Viagra |
