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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 (6162)	10/26/1998 5:27:00 PM
From: Anthony Wong	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9523

10/26 15:53 Americans want insurers to pay for Viagra - poll By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent WASHINGTON, Oct 26 (Reuters) - Americans think impotence is a serious health problem and want insurers, public and private, to help pay for treatment, a poll published on Monday shows. Even Medicaid, the combined state and federal health insurance plan for the poor, should help pay for treatments including Viagra, Pfizer's <PFE.N> best-selling impotence drug, the poll showed. "There is wide support among the public for paying at least some of the costs of Viagra," Humphrey Taylor, chairman of Louis Harris and Associates Inc., which conducted the study, told a conference sponsored by the National institutes of Health and the American Foundation for Urologic Disease. Louis Harris polled 1,006 adult men and women by telephone last week, October 15-19. "An overwhelming majority of the public thinks that when Viagra ... is prescribed to patients whose erectile dysfunction is caused by prostate cancer surgery, spinal cord injury, diabetes or multiple sclerosis, at least some of the cost should be borne by private insurers, Medicaid and the Veterans Administration," Louis Harris said in a statement. The poll found 83 percent support insurance coverage for Viagra when prescribed after prostate surgery, 80 percent of a patient has spinal cord injury and 79 percent for diabetes. It costs health maintenance organizations like Kaiser $7 a pill, less a discount, for the drug, which sells for $8 to $10 a dose retail. The country's largest nonprofit health maintenance organization (HMO), Kaiser Permanente, has refused to pay for Viagra, prompting at least one lawsuit, in California. Many other major health insurers also refuse to pay for the drug. But Medicaid is under federal orders to pay for the drug. The poll also found that 41 percent of Americans do not know what causes impotence. About 20 percent think psychological problems are to blame -- they are in some cases. Only a few know that diabetes, cardiovascular problems and other physical health problems can cause impotence. "We asked people how difficult it would be for them personally to deal with the effects of various diseases ... including impotence," Taylor added. There were big differences between the sexes. Overall, 37 percent of people said it would be extremely difficult for them to deal with chronic impotence. But 52 percent of men felt that way and only 24 percent of women. "Three out of four men and more than half of all women think it would be at least somewhat difficult to deal with this condition," the pollsters said in a statement. Pfizer says four million men have taken Viagra, and prescriptions have been written by 250,000 doctors. Dr. Michael Magee, a senior medical adviser at Pfizer, says new prescriptions have levelled off at 150,000 a week. Magee said the company has answered many of the questions that have hung over the drug -- notably whether it kills an unusually high number of men. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is checking at least 69 deaths that could be linked to Viagra. But doctors note than 69 deaths among four million men is not an unusual number and the FDA says Viagra is safe. moneynet.com@NEWS-P2&Index=0&HeadlineURL=../News/NewsHeadlines.asp&DISABLE_FORM=&NAVSVC=News\Company