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

To: BigKNY3 who wrote (7164)	3/8/1999 6:36:00 PM
From: Anthony Wong	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 9523

Viagra Not A Cure For All Sexual Problems, Researchers Says PROVIDENCE, RI -- March 8, 1999 -- Although some physicians are using Pfizer Inc.'s Viagra(sildenafil) to treat the sexual side effects of antidepressant medications, one of the drug's investigators warns against the practice because Viagra has not been studied for that purpose, this month's issue of Psychopharmacology Update reports. "If there is no erectile dysfunction, [Viagra] is not an appropriate drug," said Ridwan Shabsigh, M.D., a clinical investigator and associate professor of urology at Columbia University. "Whether that will help some other subtypes of patients with certain sexual dysfunctions such as anorgasmia [inability to achieve orgasm], I doubt it. There is simply no data." Other researchers have found Viagra to be effective in a few patients who were taking the antidepressants Zoloft or Prozac for depression or other mental disorders. According to Kenneth Paul Rosenberg, M.D., a sex therapist and clinical assistant professor of psychiatry and public health at Cornell University Medical Center, sildenafil may be effective for men who are experiencing erectile dysfunction, but not for other sexual side effects such as loss of sex drive. The issue of Viagra use in women is of particular concern since no studies of its effects have been conducted. Though Rosenberg did prescribe Viagra with partial success to a female taking Prozac, he add he encourages the scientific community to go into research using Viagra in women in a controlled, scientific environment." "I would discourage the off-label use [of Viagra] outside the research environment until further research becomes available," he said. Among his precautions for prescribers, Rosenberg emphasises the importance of screening patients for other drug therapies and obtaining a sexual history to screen for other possible causes of dysfunction. pslgroup.com