- When it was launched five years ago, Viagra was hailed
as a wonder drug that would revolutionise the sex lives of millions of
men and women.
-
- The diamond-shaped pills became a bestselling brand and
a designer accessory favoured by everyone from Robbie Williams to the former
US presidential candidate Bob Dole.
-
- But a new book by a leading American doctor reveals the
anti-impotence drug is failing to rise to the occasion. Dr Abraham Morgentaler,
a urologist at Harvard Medical School who helped with the implementation
of Viagra, says it is causing more problems for some couples than it solves.
-
- His book, The Viagra Myth, reveals for the first time
the drug's popularity is waning as it leaves a trail of broken relationships
and shattered expectations in its wake.
-
- He says: "The Viagra Myth has less to do with the
effectiveness of the medication than with our cultural propensity to look
for the easy fix. Many of my male patients, together with their partners,
have come to realise that finally achieving a great erection does not solve
their relationship problems. In fact, it has frequently made them worse."
-
- The book, to be published in November, discloses less
than half of prescriptions for Viagra are refilled, meaning the majority
of men who take the drug are not coming back for more.
-
- According to Dr Morgentaler, Viagra is triggering a male
sexual revolution in a similar way the Pill did for women during the 60s.
-
- But far from liberating men from impotence, it is forcing
them to confront previously hidden emotional problems in relationships
- and many are opting to return to the physical frustration of the bedroom
rather than face other issues.
-
- Dr Morgentaler, president of the Men's Health Forum in
the US, says he has seen male patients who have decided to stop taking
Viagra because it has increased their partner's expectations of them between
the sheets. Others are taking Viagra - then leaving their partners after
realising that while they may now be able to have sex, they are simply
not attracted to their wives or girlfriends.
-
- According to Dr Morgentaler, the drug has been hailed
as a quick-fix cure-all when it may be anything but. It seems our love
affair with Viagra has become a flop - and it all began so romantically.
-
- Like many scientific breakthroughs, Viagra was discovered
by mistake. In the late 1990s, researchers for the pharmaceutical company
Pfizer were concentrating on developing a drug to beat heart disease. They
began work with an active ingredient called sildenafil, which they hoped
would help to increase the blood flow through the blocked arteries caused
by heart disease.
-
- Early trials were started, with volunteer patients given
either sildenafil or a dummy, placebo pill. But the results were disappointing
- the drug seemed to have no effect on blocked arteries. The researchers
decided to scrap the trials and asked the volunteers to return the unused
pills.
-
- Then something strange happened - the men in the trial
who had been given the "real" sildenafil were curiously reluctant
to hand back the drug. When questioned, they admitted that while the pills
had done nothing for their heart problems, they had reached another part
of their body entirely - with incredible effects.
-
- Patients who had previously experienced sexual problems
because of their heart disease reported that, within an hour of taking
sildenafil, they were rising to the occasion with no problems.
-
- From that moment, Pfizer knew that it had a hit on its
hands. At the time, erectile dysfunction (ED), as impotence is termed in
medicine, was a love problem that dared not speak its name.
-
- One in ten men in the UK was estimated to suffer from
ED, but few were willing to go to their GP, partly because of the dearth
of effective treatments.
-
- Men who did ask for help had to cope with the indignity
of cumbersome vacuum pumps and variations on the rubber band, or resort
to a plethora of quack creams, potions and ointments available on mail
order.
-
- Viagra, as Pfizer called its new wonder drug, changed
all that. From the moment it was launched in the US in January 1998, it
became a bestseller. It not only transformed the treatment of impotence
- it made the condition something to be talked about in the open.
-
- Pfizer scored a coup when it signed up Mr Dole to star
in television commercials for Viagra. The Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner
gave the drug untold publicity when he revealed that he regularly took
it. Viagra became one of the first drugs to enter the English language
as a global brand almost equal to Coca-Cola.
-
- When Nicole Kidman stripped off in a West End play, her
performance was described as "pure theatrical Viagra". Such is
its potency that recent studies have claimed it can work on everything
from limp plants to sex-shy female pandas.
-
- When it was licensed for use in the UK in March 1998,
it caused a national debate over whether such "lifestyle" drugs
should be available on the NHS.
-
- Amid dire predictions that Viagra could cost the health
service £1bn a year, the Health Secretary at the time, Frank Dobson,
slapped a restriction on all impotence treatments, which limited them to
men with specific medical conditions.
-
- Overnight, impotence went from being something that wasn't
talked about but which most men could get help for, to a condition that
was a national talking point and only a minority could be treated for.
-
- Despite the restrictions, doctors and patients have found
ways to get their hands on the little blue pills. Since Viagra was launched,
prescriptions for impotence treatments have doubled.
-
- More than a million NHS prescriptions were written for
the condition last year - and while there is no official breakdown, the
overwhelming majority of them would be for Viagra. NHS recipients are restricted
to four pills a month.
-
- Millions more people in Britain are buying the drug over
the Internet, sometimes for as much as £10 a pill. The drug makes
more than a £2bn a year but its dominance in the market is being
threatened by the emergence of similar drugs.
-
- More worryingly, Dr Morgentaler says the hype surrounding
Viagra is being replaced with disillusionment that it has not proved to
be a panacea for problems in the bedroom. His book recounts tales of men
who decide to stop taking the pills because once the physical problem has
been cured, their partners have become more sexually demanding.
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- HOW THE BLUE PILL HAS CHANGED ONE MAN'S LIFE
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- By Danielle Demetriou
-
- When Tony Wilkinson tentatively swallowed a Viagra pill
four years ago, he had little idea that it would be the first of many that
would transform his life.
-
- Having endured years of involuntary abstention from sex
due to injuries sustained in a fall, the drug finally brought the satisfactory
love life that had eluded him and his wife, Kathy.
-
- But while Mr Wilkinson is the text-book candidate for
Viagra, which he obtains on the NHS, he has become increasingly concerned
at the growing number of men who take the drug for the wrong reasons.
-
- "There are more and more people who seem to be turning
to the drug to sort out all their problems," said Mr Wilkinson, 51,
from Camberwell, south-east London. "It has been called a magic blue
pill that can transform your life and it certainly has changed mine.
-
- "But I can see that there are lots of people who
take it thinking it will sort out a relationship that may not be right
in the first place. It may be magic for certain people, in terms of the
physical effects, but it's not going to solve every single problem if there
are other issues to deal with too."
-
- Mr Wilkinson was working as an industrial door-fitter
when he suffered serious injuries from a fall that led to impotency.
-
- While he and his wife tried a series of remedies, ranging
from injections to pumps, he failed to find a satisfactory method until
he was prescribed his first Viagra in 1999.
-
- "I haven't looked back since I took my first pill,"
he said. "As far as I'm concerned it's the best thing since sliced
bread. It means me and Kathy got our love life back."
-
- But Mr Wilkinson remains acutely aware of its limits.
-
- While he takes the drug within a stable, loving relationship,
he voiced concerns that some men may be turning to the drug for the wrong
reasons, with negative consequences.
-
- "As someone whose life was totally transformed by
it, and who needed something like this very badly, it does make me angry
that there are people who are taking it for the wrong reasons," he
said.
-
- "It does make me angry that there are some idiots
who take if for so-called recreational reasons. I think it's a bloody stupid
thing to do when there are people who really need it.
-
- "People shouldn't see it as a magic pill that will
solve everything. It only works in the right situations."
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- © 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health/story.jsp?story=437513
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