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Biotech / Medical : PFE (Pfizer) How high will it go? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Anthony Wong who wrote (4858)	8/12/1998 5:49:00 AM
From: Anthony Wong	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 9523

Some Viagra Users Temporarily Lost Vision, New Reports Say August 12, 1998 1:04 AM By Rochelle Sharpe, Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal WASHINGTON -- Some men with cardiovascular problems temporarily lost their vision after taking Viagra, according to new reports about the impotence pill's side effects. One 58-year-old man who lost vision in his left eye after taking Viagra had problems "indicative of vascular occlusive disease," or clogged blood vessels, "unlike anything (the doctor) had seen before," according to reports collected by the Food and Drug Administration that The Wall Street Journal obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. Another man, who suffered from high blood pressure, temporarily lost half his vision in his right eye after taking the pill, the reports said. "It's impossible to know whether there's any relation to Viagra," said Alan Laties, a consultant to Viagra manufacturer Pfizer Inc. and an ophthalmology professor at the University of Pennsylvania Medical School. But the handful of eye reports touch on the potential problems that can occur if men with cardiovascular disease resume intercourse using Viagra. If these men strain their hearts during sex, blood vessels anywhere in their bodies could be stressed -- including in their eyes, said Michael Marmor, an ophthalmology professor at Stanford University. The eye problems are "the ocular equivalent of having a small stroke or small heart attack," he said. Pfizer has said that in clinical trials, about 3% of Viagra users have reported temporarily seeing a bluish tinge after taking the drug, and studies are continuing. Ophthalmologists are concerned that the drug may chemically affect the eye because the drug blocks an enzyme found in the retina. But none of the reports indicates that Viagra is having a direct chemical effect on the eye, Dr. Marmor said. "This complication is more likely to be a report of patients' underlying cardiovascular disease," he said. Mariann Capriano, a spokeswoman for Pfizer, said the reports to the FDA are "anecdotes, not trends," and pointed out that more than 25 million doses of the drug have been dispensed since its launch this spring, with relatively few eye problems. Viagra sales remain high but have been dropping the past few weeks. In the week ended July 31, a total of 95,135 new prescriptions were written and 79,384 were refilled. That is down from a peak this spring of nearly 300,000 new and refilled prescriptions a week. Copyright (c) 1998 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. smartmoney.com