Click Here for Viagra ( O R O T H E R D R U G S )
IT USED TO TAKE A REAL DOCTOR TO ISSUE A PRESCRIPTION -- BEFORE THE WEB.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
BY GREG CRITSER
Salon Magazine
August 7, 1998
Consider these recent developments:
C. Everett Koop finally chucked the
saint act and formed an alliance with
Rite Aid, the drug store chain, to sell prescription
refills on the Internet.
Long's Drugs announced it is moving online.
One of Bill Gates' top lieutenants, Peter Neupert,
resigned to join a venture with Amazon.com called
Drugstore.com.
I visited a Web site, not any of the above, and
easily bought a bottle of Viagra without speaking to
any doctor.
These events are all linked to the most important
trend in modern health care: the growing desire of
American consumers to dictate exactly what
medications they want, when they want them,
traditional physician approval be damned.
The apostle of this movement may well be New
York physician Steven Lamm. Over the past few
years Lamm, an assistant professor at the NYU
School of Medicine, has authored a number of
books touting the wonders of "breakthrough"
medications that improve lifestyle.
"Today, it's actually possible to lower age barriers,
make our minds and bodies even better, and
maintain that hard-won competitive edge through a
combination of breakthrough medical discoveries
and the aggressive use of what I call Vitality
Medicine," Lamm proclaimed in his most recent
book, "Younger at Last."
And just how does one obtain this medicine? First,
find a compliant doctor, Lamm says. "In your
search, you are going to come across physicians
who may initially be skeptical of any medication,
technique, or new technology that has not already
been proven to be successful with an indisputable
double-blind study," he writes. "This would not be
the right physician for you."
Instead, he advises, find one who has "a willingness
to 'experiment' with new drugs and techniques."
Certainly Lamm is willing to experiment with his
readers. In "Thinner at Last," he proclaimed the
diet combination known as Fen-Phen to be safe and
effective -- only a few months before the Food and
Drug Administration recalled the drugs for causing
severe heart problems.
Apparently unrepentant, Lamm now has a new
book, "The Virility Solution," touting, as its cover
proclaims it, "The Amazing Drug Viagra." In it he
proclaims that "all adults are entitled to a fulfilling
sex life," that there is "a new medical miracle" and
that, in addition to Viagra, a drug called Vasomax is
"effective and well-tolerated." This is despite the
fact that Vasomax wasn't submitted to the FDA for
review until two weeks ago. It's still illegal to
market it for erectile dysfunction. Oops. That
double-blind study thing again.
The doctor and his co-writer, Gerald Couzens, laid
literary claim to the Viagra story more than a year
before the drug was approved by the FDA. In
March 1997 their agent, Herb Katz, knowing that
Lamm was engaged in clinical trials for Vasomax,
approached Simon and Schuster editor Fred Hills
with an idea for a "virility book." Hills signed on,
but with one key proviso: There would only be a
book if one of the drugs passed FDA approval.
Lamm agreed.
The keen mind will here discern something the
dealmakers did not, or at least would not: Lamm, as
a clinical investigator for Vasomax, now had an
apparent conflict of interest -- he had a financial
interest in the successful outcome of a drug he was
supposed to be objectively "studying." Did he
disclose that to the drug's sponsor, Zonagen Inc.?
How about to the human guinea pigs to whom he
administered the drug?
Both Lamm and Zonagen, which recently applied
to the FDA for approval for Vasomax, refuse to
say. Unfortunately for the consumer, the FDA has
still not figured out how to implement recent
financial disclosure laws pertaining to clinical trials.
Some disclosure is required if the trial involves
government money or is carried out through a
public institution, but even then the institution is not
required to make such disclosures public.
salonmagazine.com |
