The Federal Food and Drug Administration has warned that a coffee that was branding itself as a natural aphrodisiac, under the marketing slogan ‘serving passion one cup at a time’, may be boosting libido but is putting consumer’s health at risk.

They have warned that the ingredients of the ‘Magic Power’ coffee include a chemical similar to the erectile dysfunction medication Viagra, which could be exposing coffee lovers to ‘unpredictable risks’.

They say that hydroxythiohomosildenafil, the offending chemical, could interact with prescription medications and cause lowered blood pressure, dizziness or light-headedness. The FDA has expressed particular concern that patients taking nitrates, which are commonly prescribed to heart patients, could be at risk.

The company that manufactures Magic Power say that the active ingredients in the mix are horny goat weed, often described as a ‘herbal Viagra’, goji berry and ginseng.

The FDA has criticised the company for promoting the product as an ‘all natural dietary supplement’. The director of the FDA’s centre for Drug Evaluation and Research, Deborah M Autor said that was likely to lead consumers to assume that this meant the product was harmless and posed no health risks, when in fact it could cause ‘serious harm’.

Customs officials in Dubai have seized one of the largest hauls of Viagra ever for the region.

The team discovered 7 million Viagra and Cialis pills being stored in the warehouse of a registered local company in the Dry Port area of Dubai. Later tests showed that the pills were not genuine versions of Viagra or Cialis, but were counterfeits designed to look like the branded medication.

In a statement, the Dubai Customs Director General Ahmed Butti Ahmed said that the haul contained other sexual supplements that are banned in the United Arab Emirates. As in other countries around the world, it is illegal to supply Viagra in Dubai without a doctor’s prescription.

He added that it was thought that the fake pills were shipped over from another Arab country but refused to specify which one, saying that it could harm the investigation.

Customs suspect that those smuggling the medications were planning to re-export them to another country.

So far, three people have been arrested.  Ahmed said that after investigation, it was revealed that an employee of the company that owns the warehouse agreed with an Arab trader to store the medication there. He was paid AED 3000 a month in return.

Ahmed also said that Dubai customs were determined to crack down on smuggling, describing their vision as being that in the near future they will be the leading customs body in the world.

New research has shown that the erectile dysfunction medication Viagra can improve how well patients respond to treatment for brain tumours.

Scientists from the Neurological Institute at Ceders-Sinai Hospital in the US have conducted a study to see whether the drug can break down the body’s natural barriers to the cancer drug Herceptin. Herceptin is used to fight lung and breast cancers that have metastasised to the brain.

The problem is that even if the cancer is of a type that will respond to the drug, the Herceptin must first penetrate the ‘blood-brain’ barrier for the treatment to be effective. Dr. Julia Y Ljumbimova described the barrier as existing to protect the brain from dangerous substances, meaning that it identifies the Herceptin as dangerous.

However, when patients were given either sildanafil or vardenafil (Viagra or Levitra) they inhibited the enzyme PDE5, which made the blood-brain barrier more permeable and boosted how effective chemotherapy treatment was.  They also found that it made the brain more receptive to Herceptin, which usually is partly prevented by its large molecules from crossing the barrier, seriously reducing its effectiveness.

The results of the study showed that when patients were given vardenafil and Herceptin together, mean survival rates increased by 20%, compared to those only taking Herceptin.

Viagra is already used as a treatment for a variety of conditions, including heart problems, pulmonary embolisms and on newborns with blood flow problems.

After dropping their patent infringement case against Cialis manufacturers Eli Lilly, as we predicted, Pfizer is turning its full force of its legal team against the makers and sellers of generic versions of Viagra.

They have announced that they are suing Israeli company Teva Pharmaceuticals to prevent the firm from selling a generic version of the best-selling erectile dysfunction drug Viagra.

Teva has already received a tentative agreement from the U.S Food and Drug Administration allowing them to sell a generic version when the primary patent on Viagra expires in 2012, which covers the composition of the medication.

Viagra is also covered by a second patent, expiring in 2019, which relates to its use as an erectile dysfunction medication. It is also used as a treatment for a variety of other conditions, including pulmonary embolisms, but Pfizer makes most profit from its sales to treat ED, estimated at $1.9 billion annually.

Under patent law, firms are allowed to issue patents on already-protected compounds to cover them for new uses, but these patents are less strong than the original composition-of-matter patent.

In 2004, Teva notified Pfizer of their intention to manufacture a generic version of the medication when the first patent expires, arguing that the 2019 patent will not be infringed by the production of a generic.

If Pfizer cannot stop the generic version being given the go-ahead, then it could change the face of erectile dysfunction sales quite drastically. At the moment there are no generic medications, though many illegal companies claim to be offering them online.

A legal generic could bring down the cost of medication very significantly, in all likelihood forcing Eli Lilly, Pfizer and other players in the market to adjust prices accordingly.

But for the moment, it’s very much a case of watch this space...

While Viagra has been very helpful to many men around the world , its been slightly unexpected to see it being used over the past few days as a political tool.

While President Obama is joyful that he managed to get his healthcare bill through, which will mean the majority of Americans will have access to affordable healthcare, Republican politicians are desperately trying to either stall or stop it.

They hope that by presenting Democrats with amendments to the legislation they can’t say no to, they will get the bill back to the House, a severe blow for the rival party. Viagra may seem an innocuous medicine, but Senator Tom Coburn is hoping it will prove the key to sabotaging the bill.

In a series of 9 amendments he has proposed to the House, the amendment entitled ‘No Erectile Dysfunction Drugs to Sex Offenders’ is top of the list.

He demands that convicted child molesters, rapists and sex offenders are not covered for the prescription of Viagra and other erectile dysfunction drugs and that abortion medications also be prohibited.

By making that the first point of the amendment, Democrats voting against it are opening themselves up to claims that they support sex offenders being given Viagra, which would go down like a lead balloon amongst voters in their home states.

Democrats, who voted unanimously for the bill, are being urged to close ranks and vote against any amendments, in order to get the bill passed into law as soon as possible. The President’s credibility is resting on its success, after he made it a key point in his aims for the presidency.

A revolutionary method to treat infertility using the erectile dysfunction drug Viagra has resulting in a 34 year old women finally giving birth to a healthy baby girl.

34-year-old Kerry Holmes and her husband David, 33, had gone through three rounds of IVF and had suffered a miscarriage after Mrs. Holmes fell pregnant in 2005 but lost the baby at 12 weeks.

After the numerous disappointments, Mrs. Holmes had a scan at a private fertility clinic in Nottingham. The images revealed that she had a poor flow of blood to the womb, which had made the lining of the womb too thin for the embryo to successfully implant.

The director of the clinic, Dr. George Ndukwe, recommended trying Viagra to boost blood flow. The treatment is generally used to help men achieve sufficient blood flow to the penis to achieve an erection, though we've covered a variety of stories where is has been used in different ways, sometimes even saving lives.

Mrs. Holmes was prescribed the medication for nine days and says that it was not ‘a pleasant experience’. She said that minutes after taking her first dose, she noticed her body go pink and her face flush.

After the course of medication was completed, further scans showed that the lining of the wall of the womb had thickened enough for embroyos to successfully implant and the doctors put in IVF embroyos. Two weeks later, it was confirmed that Mrs. Holmes was pregnant and she carried the baby to term, giving birth to Grace in December.

It is thought that this is the first instance of the treatment being used to help infertile women. Dr. Ndukwe said that though Viagra can improve the lining the procedure can be dangerous and should only be performed under a doctor’s supervision.

Mrs. Holmes, a teacher from Yorkshire, commented, “Thanks to Viagra I’m a mother at last!”

The UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency have successfully carried out a raid in Bristol, resulting in the seizure of a large load of counterfeit medications.

Police from the Safer Stronger Neighbourhood team supported their collegues at the MHRA and carried out the raids at three properties, in the Newtown, Redfield and Hotwells areas of the city.

In total, the team seized counterfeit medications worth £180,000. They included the erectile dysfunction medications Viagra, Levitra and Cialis, as well as the anti-anxiety medication Diezepam. The officers also discovered a large amount of cannabis plants at one of the properties, thought to have a street value of £40,000.

Further investigation also resulted in the seizure of 1000 tablets which officials believe to be counterfeit.

So far, a 23-year old man has been arrested on suspicious of cultivating cannabis. A 28-year old man has also been arrested on suspicious of supplying counterfeit medication.

A spokesperson for the Safer Neighbourhood team, police sergeant Jon Ames, said that the branch was committed to stamping out the trade in counterfeit medication and asked for the public to contact them if they had any further information about illegal activity.

The head of enforcement for the MHRA Mike Deats warned that people who purchased medication from any other sources other than a registered pharmacy were putting their health at risk, possibly taking doses that were too high or low or even imbibing dangerous substances.

He added that those dealing in counterfeit drugs didn’t care about consumer’s health and were only interested in making money.

The U.S Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) panel has partly ruled against a claim by Viagra manufacturers Pfizer that the Chinese herb yin yang huo, also known as horny goat weed, infringed on their patent rights for the medication.

The judges said that an element of the patent for Viagra was invalid as the medication is not sufficiently different from the traditional Chinese herb.

The ruling is a blow for Pfizer as it will affect an ongoing patent dispute they have with Eli Lilly over the rival company’s Cialis, which has been ongoing since 2002. Pfizer claimed that their method for treating erectile dysfunction was a new invention, but the similarity the blue pill has to horny goat weed means that a precedent has been set that this is not the case.

The USPTO found that both horny goat weed and Viagra act through the same mechanism, the inhibition of the enzyme phosphodieterase-5, or PDE-5. They ruled that ‘the patent claim was the logical step up from using the herb’.

A Pfizer spokesperson has said that the other aspects of the patent remain valid and said that it would not have an impact on Pfizer’s other claims over sildenafil, the active ingredient in Viagra. The firm has not commented on how the decision could impact on the 5-year lawsuit against Eli Lilley.

The company has until the 12^th of April to either seek a rehearing from the UPSPTO or appeal the decision through the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, the body specialising in patent law.

We have heard that Pfizer is planning a new version of Viagra that will be available over the counter. According to Campaign magazine, Pfizer is looking at a new formulation and the product will have a completely different name.

Pfizer has previously applied for a license for Viagra to be sold over the counter without seeing a doctor but this was rejected by regulators who insisted that it was essential that patients consult with a doctor prior to a prescription for this medication being written. The reason for this is that erectile dysfunction can indicate more serious underlying conditions that may be missed if the drugs that solve erectile dysfunction or impotence were more freely available.

Our hunch is that this one will not get through the regulators for the same reason as the last attempt. Viagra is available under Patient Group Direction in the UK, where the treatment is prescribed by a pharmacist after a consultation.

The Viagra patent expires in 2012, after which time the price should come down markedly as generic versions become available on a legal basis.

Viagra – the perfect subject for a film. Well, kind of. Yes, there is a new movie out this week, Holy Water, which concerns the shenanigans of a group of Irish men who rather unbelievably steal a massive shipload of Viagra. Which somehow gets into the town’s water system.

The town then becomes a den of wild rumpy-pumpy and sexy times, with stereotyped Irish bodies being overcome by unfamiliar lustfulness.

The drug company Pfizer, who manufactures the drug, are also given a major role as they seek to recapture the multi-million pound shipment the hilarious Irish inadvertently capture. If the Irish characters are ridiculously clichéd, then the mind boggles at what Pfizer employees will make of Linda Hamilton – of Terminator fame – playing the Pfizer person tasked with getting the blue pills back.

Pfizer have been allowed to put disclaimers in at the start and end of the film, probably a well-judged move as the plot centres around the theory that if you dump truckloads of Viagra into a well then the medication will still work as it gets into the water system of the local town (it won’t – don’t try this one at home to spice up the local gossip.) However it appears that they are not entirely displeased by the free publicity the film will generate for them.

Unfortunately the movie has been enthusiastically and energetically panned by film critics, garnering an average of 1 star in most newspapers. The Times described it as ‘staggeringly unfunny and skin-crawlingly unsexy’ while the Guardian said it has ‘flagging comic potency’ (full marks for the double-entendres there).

The UK Medicines regulator has warned that patients taking herbal remedies to treat erectile dysfunction could be taking serious risks with their health.

The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency, the MHRA, has said that patients should avoid taking herbal ED products and should stick to the three clinically trialed remedies for the condition, Cialis, Levitra and Viagra.

The regulatory body said that often, herbal products contain unspecified chemical ingredients and are dangerous and misleading. In a statement, they said that frequently products that promised to be 100% natural were making false claims.

The products are sold either on the internet or through traditional herbal outlets. Each month, the MHRA announce that various supposedly herbal products have been discovered to contain illegal ingredients, such as sildenafil (the active drug in Viagra) or tadalafil (the drug in Cialis), though this is not declared on the ingredients list.

Both drugs should only be sold with a doctor’s prescription and can put patients health at risk if they have contra-indications for the medication.

The MHRA warned that taking medicines containing ‘random, uncontrolled quantities’ of the analogue chemical compounds could potentially cause serious reactions in patients, including strokes, heart attacks and severe hypotension.

Since 2005, the MHRA have discovered that 2/3s of the 138 unlicensed herbal products they tested contained prescription-only medications in a range of quantities.

The three pharmaceutical firms who manufacture the best-selling erectile dysfunction drugs Viagra, Cialis and Levitra have received a heavy fine after they were convicted of price fixing their drugs in Switzerland.

The Swiss Competition Commission have ruled that the three firms, Pfzier, Eli Lilley and Bayer AG must pay a total f 5.7million francs (or $5.7 million) for breaching Swiss competition law. It has not been revealed how much each company must individually pay.

All the companies refuted the allegation. A spokeperson from Eli Lilley, manufacturers of Cialis, said that the company believed that the public price recommendation for the drug was in line with Swiss competition law, while Bayer released a statement said that they were exploring how they could challenge the fine. Pfizer’s spokeperson said that the firm did not believe the decision would survive a court examination.

The case first came to the public’s attention when the three companies claimed that the cost of the three drugs had risen drastically, leading the SCC to suspect that the suggested prices were far too high.

The Swiss have been watching the case with great interest and the findings of the SCC are likely to cause huge embarrassment to the pharmaceutical firms. With their reputations under threat, they are likely to fight tooth and nail against the fine.

The Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (the MHRA) have busted a criminal ring selling illegal Viagra and erectile dysfunction products.

The MHRA said that in a house in an expensive part of Bristol, they discovered large quantities of the banned Viagra substitute Kamagra, as well as other fake drugs with name like Erectalis, Silagra, Eriacta and counterfeit versions of the hairloss medication Propecia, rebranded as  ‘Finpecia’.

Whereas most raids on illegal companies happen in squalid warehouses in less affluent areas, the enforcement officials were surprised to discover that the suburban bungalow contained such a big haul of medication. 14 items of evidence were seized, including computer hard drives and pills worth thousands of pounds.

The MHRA were first alerted to the activities of the group two months ago, leading to the launch of an investigation. The group were selling the counterfeit drugs on a website which promised customers genuine Viagra.

Each year, the MHRA believe that illegal sales of counterfeit medications net criminal gangs around £45 million each year. Some experts have even estimated that a kilo of counterfeit Viagra is more valuable than the same weight of heroin.

Danny Lee Frost, head of operations at the MHRA, said that the operation went ‘as good as we could have hoped for’. The seized medication has now been sent to the laboratory to be analysed and the suspect arrested during the raid has been charged and is awaiting trial.

Here at The Online Clinic, we love, love, love stories about weird chefs creating dishes that promise to  - erm -  help diners really celebrate after a great meal. So imagine our joy this morning when we discovered that a Bogotan cookery school has created a dish that goes one step further.

Who needs arousing ingredients like oysters, guarana and chocolate when genius chefs have managed to create a desert that does actually contain Viagra as an ingredient? The concept for the dish is the brainchild of cookery students in the Quindio provice of Colombia, who presented it at the ‘Gastronomy 2009’ show in Bogota.

Served in a parfait glass (like a martini glass), the desert is made with passion fruit and topped with whipped cream and chocolate. Though the students have refused to give the full list of ingredients, they did confirm it contains the prescription-only medication sildenafil.

One of the chefs, Sebastian Gomez, said that in the recipe they have specified exactly how much Viagra to dissolve into the desert.  He added that they were inspired by the desire to ‘reinterpret’ Viagra as an aphrodisiac.

Obviously as Viagra is a prescription-only medication the desert is extremely unlikely to be appearing in a restaurant near you any time soon and just to be clear, we really, really, really don’t recommend trying to recreate this dish at home. That said, we think Pfizer (who manufacture Viagra) should think seriously about the possibilities. Who wouldn’t prefer to see the doctor for pudding rather than pills?

Scientists conducting a clinical trial into a new anti-depression medication have discovered that while the drug does not treat depression very well, it could potentially become the ‘female Viagra’. Scientists have said it could be available in up to 18 months.

Nearly 2,000 pre-menopausal women took part in the trial for flibanserin, who had been diagnosed with the condition hypoactive sexual desire disorder. Those women who took 100mg of the drug daily reported that there had been a significant increase in their sexual desire and the number of satisfactory sexual experiences they had.

In three separate trials involving women in the US, Europe and Canada, the drug proved effective at increasing women’s sexual desire, without affecting their mood. The trials were funded by the manufacturer of the medication, Boehringer Ingelheim.

However a lot of experts have expressed scepticism that low sex drive in women can be solved with medication. Professor Irwin Nazareth of University College London said that reduced sexual interest could be ‘normal’ for some women, while Paula Hall from Relate said that while loss of lidido could be a ‘physical thing’ pills weren’t going to ‘fix a broken relationship or help with looking after the kids.’

The trials are fantastic news for women who suffer from low libibo and are made particularly exciting by the fact that the drug does not seem to increase libido by acting on mood. For too long, women suffering from sexual disorders have had their problems dismissed as being connected to their relationships or state of mind, rather than it being a medical condition.

Clearly, many sexual conditions in women and men can be caused by bad relationships or stress in someone’s personal life. It is well known that ED can be related to stress – but no one suggests that this is true in every case, or that medication could prevent people from examining problems in their home lives.

Hopefully, a medication proven to bring back a woman’s lost libido will significantly act to silence the sceptical voices in the medical community that accept that erectile dysfunction can be medical in origin, while claiming that sexual disorders in women are always rooted in their emotions. The quicker that the medical community abandons such sexist axioms the better!

Customs officials have seized a massive shipment of counterfeit Viagra after a criminal gang tried to smuggle it into the US through Miami International Airport. U.S Customs and Border Protection Officers say that they intercepted 21,600 pills in total, weighing 50 pounds.

Samples of the seized pills were sent to a specialist testing group sent up by customs to be tested. They confirmed that the pills were counterfeit, saying that their chemical ingredients were inconsistent with the authentic pills made by Pfizer, the official manufacturers.

Customs officials first became suspicious of the shipment, which came from India, when they saw what a large number of pills each box contained. The head of Customs and Border Protection, Jose Catellanos, said that the shipment was so large they do not believe it was meant for the United States.

The director of field operations warned that the criminal gangs trafficking counterfeit pills were not only stealing profits from legitimate companies but were also duping customers into buying products that were made by unknown manufacturers and contained unknown ingredients. Harold Woodward added that such products could be dangerous to the health and safety of the consumer.

We’ve had Viagra icecream, Viagra sweets and now a New York restaurant is offering Viagra soup. El Rey, based in Brooklyn, is offering the fish-based soup in the hope that it will give ardent customers a bit more fire in their loins when they return home.

For £20, customers can experience the potent and apparently arousing blend of lobster tail, octopus, crab, clams, flounder and white fish, mixed in with a sprinkle of cilantro and a glug of tequila. Now I think many people will attest to the erotic powers of tequila (4 shots down the weird guy who’s been trying to pinch your bum all night terrifyingly starts to seem a far better prospect) but perhaps the sexual power of fish is slightly less well known.

However the manager of El Rey, Eucilides Genae, said that there is a ‘certain something about seafood that gets you really horny.’ He admitted that the soup couldn’t compare with the proven medicinal properties of Viagra, but claimed that seafood has long been recognised as part of a romantic meal.

He said that the soup gives customers ‘strength’ and gets them ‘going’ when the time is right. The restaurant asks customers to return the next morning and let them know how they got on.

Staff have noticed that while on average they sell about 10 bowls a day, demand is especially high on Friday nights. And now all I can imagine is a couple on a date. The lights are low, he feels encouraged,  he orders the Viagra soup, and his presumption results in the fishy broth all over his lap. The ingredients might be arousing, but probably less so when all over your best clothes.

The US and China are locked in a battle over the custody of a Chinese woman accused of importing illegal medication, including the diet pills Reductil and Xenical and erectile dysfunction medications like Viagra and Cialis.

Miao Qun Huang, also known as Cherry Wong, has been investigated by U.S officials for illegal trade of counterfeit medications, and the National Bureau of Investigation has placed her on ‘provisional arrest’ to be extradited to from the Philippines to Texas. The provisional warrant was issued by a Manila court.

However the Chinese embassy in a diplomatic note sent to the Department of Justice said that as she was a Chinese national holding a Chinese passport, and her crimes were committed in the Chinese mainland, they believed that China had jurisdiction over her.  They added that China was strongly opposed to her extradition to any third country without their prior consent.

If she is successfully extradited to Texas, Huang will face 7 charges of trafficking counterfeit Viagra, Cialis, Xenical and Reductil. Her lawyer is arguing that as the Philippines and China signed their own extradition treaty preventing the extradition of a country’s citizen without the consent of their country of nationality, she cannot be sent to Texas to face trial.

Her lawyer Jose Bernas has said that her extradition would set a dangerous precedent in international law, warning that it could leave the Philippines open to the extradition of their own nationals, either from the Philippines or a third country, for crimes committed outside of the requesting state’s territory.

After reviewing 49 published studies, a team of scientists have concluded that while Viagra is associated with some side effects, there is still a lack of data about the possibility of the medication causing long-term harm.

Dr. Alexander Tsertsvadze of the Ottawa Health Institute in Canada and his colleagues said that they were concerned that the studies reviewed did not follow patients up for longer than 12 weeks and said that there needed to be a better balance between ascertaining the effectiveness of the drugs and the long-term effects.

They said that from the data there was, it seemed that men taking the medication as opposed to a placebo were 56% more likely to experience side effects. These are generally mild, with the most common including headaches, facial flushing, difficulty breathing and vision problems.

Writing in this month’s edition of the journal Urology, they said that it would be worthwhile to consider different methods to lessen the likelihood of patients experiencing side effects, such as a flexible dosing regimen.

At the moment millions of men take Viagra around the world with few problems. It is one of the best selling drugs on the market for treating erectile dysfunction.

A new study, published in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections, has shown that men who use Viagra or other erectile dysfunction medications may be more likely to have the condom break during sexual intercourse.

The researchers recruited 440 men who used condoms when having vaginal sex who also used medication to help them achieve an erection. The volunteers were recruited using newspaper and internet advertisements and asked to fill in questionnaires about their most recent sexual experience.

1 in 10 of the men had used an erectile dysfunction treatment on the occasions and for 12% of those men the condom broke, compared to 5% of men who did not use medication. The researchers also discovered that men who reported having intercourse for longer were also more likely to report the condom having broken.

When the results of the questionnaire were analysed to take into account other factors, it was discovered that erectile dysfunction medication remained a significant factor in the condom breaking. Men using treatments like Viagra were up to 4 times more likely to have this happen to them.

The team who lead the study have suggested that the results may be due to Viagra and other similar medications causing increased swelling when a man achieves an erection, possibly causing the condom to be tighter. They have said that men using medications might be advised to use condoms large enough to accommodate the enhanced erection and warned that longer-lasting sex might be associated with condom breakage.

However there is some doubt about the results as the same team did a similar study last year, where 7% of the respondents used an erectile dysfunction drug, but no increased likelihood of condom breakage was noted.

The researchers have called for there to be further investigation of the possible link between prophylactics failing and the usage of impotence drugs.

A study has suggested that compounds found in the erectile dysfunction medication Viagra may work to combat heart disease by shrinking abnormally large hearts.

The drug is already in clinical trials investigating whether it can prevent heart disease, but the research, published online in the journal Circulation Research. Abnormal muscle growth in the heart is known as hypertrophy and is caused by a diseased heart having to work harder to push around blood, causing the overworked heart muscles to grow. This itself can cause the chamber walls of the heart to thicken, slow down heartbeats and cause potentially fatal arthymias.

The scientists on the study said that Viagra interferes with enzymes, known as PDEs, that break down the molecule cyclic guanosine monophosphate, or cGMP, that normally would stop the cells in the heart muscle growing.  This means that the drug works to control hypertrophy. They also discovered that a specific PDE, PDE1a,  also breaks down cGMP, using a different mechanism to Viagra.

Chen Yan of the Medical Centre at the University of Rochester and one of the study’s authors, said that based on the results of the trials they would be investigating ways to develop new medications to control abnormal heart growth. He added that it was not yet clear whether combining PDE1 inhibitors with Viagra would be effective at combating heart disease but said that further tests on animals were now scheduled.

There’s definitely something in the water (or should that be something in the juice?) in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The Ministry of Health has discovered Viagra in juices being sold throughout the capital after enforcement officers raided more than thirty retailers and distributors dealing in the fruit juice.

The officers were acting on an anonymous tip-off which resulted in several hundred thousand ringgit worth of the product being seized. When samples were tested it was confirmed that the fruit juice did indeed contain Sildenafil Citrate (otherwise known as Viagra).

Although traces of the substance have been found in other materials before this (such as coffee mixtures and sweets), the Ministry of Health claimed this was the very first time that Sildenafil Citrate had ever been detected in fruit juice.

The Ministry of Health also issued a statement confirming the dangers of this ‘potent mixture’, describing it as potentially ‘deadly’ to those people suffering from low blood pressure and heart disease.

However, the reaction from the public has been generally positive. Despite a small number of people complaining about the suspicious juice, it has met with mostly good reviews from customers.

Sildenafil Citrate is tightly restricted in Malaysia and can only be obtained through a prescription from a doctor. The juice however, which it is claimed was produced from selected natural herbs to improve both men and women’s sexual performance, has been widely available from the local markets for up to six months and has met with rave reviews from the customers.

A customer can obtain a box of fruit juice, containing six sachets of juice in powdered form, for more than RM50. He, or she, then merely has to mix the powder with water before drinking.

More than thirty simultaneous raids were carried out across the country and more than six hundred boxes of the fruit juice were recovered. The seized product is estimated to be worth several hundred thousand ringgit and is believed to have been manufactured at a factory in Kajang. The investigation is ongoing.

Pzifer has won a court case against a man who towed a decommissioned missile around New York bearing the slogan “Viva Viagra”, the tagline Pzifer uses to advertise their best-selling erectile dysfunction drug.

Arye Sachs was sued by the pharmaceutical firm after he attempted to promote his business, which sells advertising space on decommissioned military vehicles, by parking the 20-foot-long missile outside the headquarters of Pzifer.

After the stunt in September 2008, Pfizer said that consumers might mistake the missile for a genuine advert. Their advertising campaign is already extensive, covering print and television, and costs millions. Presumably the powers that be were so distressed at the thought consumers might be duped into thinking they had spent part of the budget on anything as odd as a decommissioned missile to boost sales that they felt it merited a trip to the courts.

Sachs apparently ignored requests to remove the advert and threatened to erect further displays, complete with models ‘riding’ the missile and handing out condoms.

In his ruling for the firm, U.S District Judge William Pauley said that even if the defendant intended the stunt to be funny, “Pfizer did not get the joke.”

Mr. Sachs argued that he should be allowed to use the Viagra name under the rights of free speech. He has now been ordered to pay legal fees for Pfizer but says he plans to appeal, claiming that the “sheer power of the largest pharmaceutical company in the world trying to squash a little guy.”

Hmm.

Counterfeit Viagra has been seized by customs officials at East Midlands Airport. Over 4 months, Customs took over £1.6m worth of fake goods, which as well as the erectile dysfunction medication included imitations hair straighteners and cheap tobacco.

Over the 4 months, between the start of April and the end of July, the same amount of counterfeitgoods was seized as the amount discovered over the whole of the preceeding 12 months. Border officials said that the recession has created a surge in the counterfeit market, as consumers are especially eager for a bargain. However they added that it was dangerous, as people think they are getting a bargain but are sold unsafe goods.

Chris Bagley, operations manager for the area, said that customs were seeing a lot of counterfeit medications coming in, which is potentially very dangerous. Pfizer recently published a survey that showed that counterfeit Viagra could be made of anything, from rat poison to talcum powder.

He added that most of the goods were coming from China, Hong Kong, Thailand and Malaysia originally. Often sold online, foreign criminal gangs are setting up website addresses with ‘co.uk’ at the end to trick customers.

Malaysian health authorities have cracked down on the sales of a sweet being sold as a ‘sex sweet’ after it was discovered not to contain herbal root as advertised but the prescription-only drugs tadalafil and sildenafil.

Enforcers from the Health Ministry intercepted a shipment of 68,000 ‘herbal’ candies before they were exported to Middle East and China..

A spokesperson from the ministry said that they were being illegally manufactured in remote local factories and contained doses of medication several times stronger than normal Viagra pills.

The subsequent investigation showed that the manufacturers deliberately included the drugs in the mixture of the sweets. The raids followed a tip-off from a source and several raids were carried out.

The distributors of the sweets put misleading information on the packaging of the product , which claimed that the main ingredient of the sweets was plant extract and ginseng, in an attempt to mislead customers.

If convicted, the offenders could face two years imprisonment or be given a significant fine.

Bayer Pharmaceuticals, the manufacturers of the erectile dysfunction medication Levitra, have submitted an application to have a new formulation of the drug registered in the European Union.

Bayer are excited about the new formula, which they hope will improve the currently flagging sales of the medicine. They plan to sell the medicine in the form on an orodispersible tablet containing 10mg of vardenafil, the medical name for Levitra. The pill will dissolves on the tongue in seconds. This would give Levitra an edge of the competition, as both Cialis and Viagra need to be taken with water.

They hope that the new type of pill will prove more discreet and convenient, as men will not need to interrupt foreplay to get a glass of water to take their medication with.

A representative from Bayer, Jean-Philippe Milon, said that the new formula marked a ‘strategic milestone’ in the development of ‘innovative and easy-to-use men’s health products’.

The pharmaceutical company have completed two large phase III clinical studies which they say showed the the new formulation is as safe and effective as the current pills on the market.

A drugs company has launched a new medication that uses the ED drug Cialis – known medically as tadalafil – to combat pulmonary hypertension. The medication is called Adcirca and is being sold as a rival to Pzifer’s treatment Revatio, which uses Viagra to similar effect.

Pharmaceutical companies discovered a few years ago that the common erectile dysfunction medications had a secondary use as a pulmonary hypertension medication. Pfizer was the first to get its product on the market, and though it is not a massive money spinner for them, Revatio is one of the few medications they sell that has steadily increasing sales.

It is believed that Cialis may be more effective at treating pulmonary hypertension as it will be offered to patients in a single pill which will have the same effect as three doses of Revatio. There have also been suggestions that United Therapeutics will offer it at a lower price than patients and healthcare providers would pay for Revatio.

Industry pundits are now questioning whether Bayer will push on with a pulmonary hypertension product based on their own erectile dysfunction medication, Levitra, which has suffered from flagging sales in the U.S over the last couple of years. There have already been clinical trials that suggest that it too is effective in treating the condition.

A baby with a life-threatening illness is being kept alive with the erectile dysfunction medication Viagra. Owen Bloomfield was born with a congenital diaphragmatic hernia, which means that a number of his organs are in the wrong place. He also has a hole in his heart, two spleens and high blood pressure.

Though Owen was only given a week to live, doctors at Glasgow’s Yorkhill Children’s Hospital have been able to prolong his life through regular doses of sildanafil, the medical name for Viagra .

The drug has lowered his blood pressure and his doctors are hopeful that they can turn the machine providing him with nitrogen off. This will mean that his parents Ronnie and Jennifer will be able to pick him up and hug him.

The consultant surgeon at the hospital, Gregor Walker, said that it was becoming increasingly common to use Viagra to treat babies. The new method of treatment was pioneered 8 years ago and has proved an effective treatment option in quite a few cases.

Owen is now aged four weeks and is in a stable condition. He has had surgery to put his organs into the correct position and is starting to breathe on his own.

Scientists have already said that sildanafil could save the lives of thousands of babies born with pulmonary hypertension in the third world. Not only is it an effective treatment, but it is much more affordable than other available options.

Hollywood sex is perfect. Noses don’t clash, the sheets are always clean, the lighting is ideal and the participants nimble, smooth-tongued and unlikely to make terrible faces when carried away.

Now we Brits are so desperate to emulate the sexual prowess of film characters that apparently Viagra prescriptions have risen because of it. A sociologist at Kent University, Frank Furedi,  has said that images being received from Hollywood about what people should expect from sex have lead people to “expect the best”. There is no longer the sense of learning from experience, and sex has fundamentally changed.

He then went on to explain that a lot of research is starting to show Viagra is increasingly being used as a recreational drug to enhance performance. He said men use it to “overcome performance anxiety”.

In an article in The Telegraph , it was implied that the rise in Viagra prescriptions we have seen over the last couple of years is down to men wanting to be perfect for their partners.

Current government guidelines say that Viagra should only be prescribed on the NHS when someone has an underlying health condition which prevents them from achieving an erection or those experiencing severe stress as a result of being impotent.

Every night, it is estimated that 30,000 pills are taken by men needing help to achieve an erection. Over the last year, the cost of medicine to treat erectile dysfunction has risen by £11m, from £59 m to £70 m.

A British ice-cream company is offering a version of the frozen treat that it claims is akin to a dose of Viagra. Named “The Sex Pistol”, the creamy cocktail is due to go on sale in the department store Selfridges, which prides itself on having a food hall selling the most recherché of products.

The Icecreamists say that just one helping of the ice-cream based drink will leave shoppers feeling “energised and confident”. They however asked drinkers to not be so overcome by their new confidence that they would pester the staff, a worry Selfridges seem to take so seriously they have limited each customer to only one.

The cocktail will be served in a frosted glass and contains herbal ingredients such as gingko biloba, arginine and guarana, all believed to rev up the libido. Despite the herbal additions though it is thought the real kicker comes from the shot of Absinthe which arrives with the drink, offered in a phallic pink pistol.

The combination of ingredients is said to enhance blood flow, though it remains to be seen if it will enhance blood flow to the extent that the popular blue pill does.

The Icecreamists say that they want to liberate the world from ordinary ice cream and will be selling a variety of frozen goods called “vice creams.” The company will operate from an installation on the ground floor of Selfridges named “God Save the Icecream”.

While customers try not to get over-excited by what the company has described as natural Viagra, they will be entertained with dancers, catwalk shows and the musical stylings of Jimi Love and the Icecreamists.

There has been disappointment for sufferers of sickle-cell anaemia this week after the National Institutes of Health halted a clinical trial into whether the erectile-dysfunction medication Viagra could treat pulmonary hypertension in sickle-cell patients.

Previous studies have shown that sildanafil, the active ingredient in Viagra , is effective at treating pulmonary hypertension in otherwise healthy patients. Manufacturers Pfizer sell it under the brand name ‘Revatio’.  It relaxes the blood vessels and so helps to prevent the build up of high blood pressure that can cause heart attacks and even death.

The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute had hoped that sildanafil could work with sickle cell patients as well, about 30% of whom suffer from pulmonary hypertension. This is due to the damage the disease causes to the lining of the blood vessels running between the heart and lungs.

However though the initial clinical trial was meant to go on for a year, it was stopped after 16 weeks after it was discovered that the patients were significantly more likely to experience a painful sickle cell crisis. Of the 33 patients, 38% taking the medication had crises, compared to 8% taking the placebo.

The researchers said that as the trial was specific to sickle-cell patients, there was no risk to otherwise healthy people taking Revatio. However there has been surprise at the results, as Revatio has generally been successful and theoretically should have worked. The researchers are still unsure as to why it increased the likelihood of a sickle cell attack.

More and more men are seeking treatment for erectile dysfunction, new figures have revealed. Prescriptions for Viagra and other ED medications like Cialis rose by 6% this year compared to last, with a total of 1.98 million men getting prescriptions from their doctors.

The rise in men seeking prescriptions from licensed doctors is good news for the MHRA who have been campaigning against the trade in counterfeit drugs over the internet. Many men feel too embarrassed to visit their GP about their erectile function problems, though estimates suggest 1 in 10 men over 40 will experience impotence. This means that they go on the internet and often get taken in by illegal firms.

There are a few legal clinics, such as ours, that only use Royal Pharmaceutical Society registered UK pharmacies and General Medical Council registered doctors, but there are many more illegal firms operating.

The rise in prescriptions means that the NHS is paying £35 million a year for the medications. Viagra is still the most popular drug – 1.18 of all the men getting treated last year went for the famous blue pills.

Sandra Gidley, the Liberal Democrat health spokeswoman, said that despite the cost no one would begrudge the men help in treating their impotence.  However she warned that anti-impotence drugs should not be seen as a ‘cure’ as impotence could be a symptom of an underlying health conditions such as diabetes or a heart condition.

If the slew of emails I get in my inbox are true, then even though I’m a women, I probably could have grown my own penis if I had taken up the spammer’s myriad offers to make it “bigger and stronger”.

No woman would ever need to complain to her girlfriends over a glass of wine about a disappointing night , when spammers are promising drugs that would enable the lucky stud to “give her the most powerful orgasm of her life!” (That is a direct quote – the same email also advised, “Attack Your Lady Harder” which is seems a little at odds with the promised orgasm, but still).

However Pfizer and Microsoft Corps have come together and decided to do something to save me from the spammers.

On Thursday, they announced that they had filed a total of 17 lawsuits against individuals associated with the sale and distribution of Viagra. By filing the lawsuits they now can subpoena the internet service providers to track down the defendants and hopefully do something to halt some of the deluge of spam.

The two companies said that 1 in 4 spam emails offer Viagra, which Pfizer manufacture. Often consumers are duped into thinking they are from genuine Pfizer suppliers, only to end up with counterfeit medication that is more likely to result in a heart attack than an earth-shattering night of pleasure.

Honestly, 17 lawsuits are unlikely to make much of a difference to the amount of spam flying about the internet, or indeed to the numbers of consumers buying illegal medication on the web, but it is the first time that a pharmaceutical company has teamed up with a nanotechnology firm to at least try. For Pfizer, even making a marginal difference to the amount of counterfeiting of Viagra can net them millions of dollars worth of lost revenue.

I still think I will continue to get lots of offers to  make my imaginary willy bigger and stronger, but I shall take comfort in the fact that Pfizer and Microsoft are on my side. Sort of.

A new NHS pamphlet encouraging pensioners to rev up their sex lives with Viagra and dating agencies has been criticised as a waste of public funds. The 60-page booklet cost £13,700 and has been distributed to older people in the Medway area of Kent.

As well as informing women that sex boosts oestrogen and so can prevent heart disease and osteoporosis, it also advised that they could improve their bladder control as regular sessions in the bedroom would strengthen pelvic floor muscles.

The booklet advises the older generation about the benefits of the erectile dysfunction medication Viagra, which is often used by more elderly men to restore their ability to achieve an erection, which decreases with age. It is believed that 50% of men over 40 will experience the problem at some point. It also warns that everyone who is sexually active – regardless of their age – needs to get regular sexual health check-ups.

The Tax Payers Alliance, which monitors use of tax-payers money, have lambasted the booklet as an “obscene” waste of money, suggesting that it could be viewed as an interference with people’s private lives and that the money could have been spent on operations.

However Tricia Butt, development manager at Medway Older Persons Partnership, who supported its publication, has rejected the criticisms. She pointed out that old age didn’t mean the end of “libidinal energy” and said that if it helped people, then it could not be called a waste of money.

Earlier this week, a massive trial into the sales of counterfeit Viagra, Cialis and Propecia came to a close as the last three members of a seven-strong criminal gang were jailed at Kingston Crown Court.

The Medicines and Heathcare Products Regulatory Agency's investigation, codenamed Operation Stormgrand, saw the gang receive prison sentences totalling 17.5 years and confiscation orders for £3,074,242. The operation, begun in 2005, was the largest ever discovery by the MHRA of counterfeit drugs, with over £1.5 m worth of counterfeit medication seized.

The gang formed the UK arm of a worldwide ring which was operating in China, India, Pakistan, the Caribbean and the USA. In 2002 HM Customs officials seized large quantities of Viagra at Stanstead Airport, followed by the seizure of a variety of other drugs disguised as harmless supplements with names such as Samples of Mineral Supplements for Dogs” and “Calcium for Kids.”

The last person to be sentenced was Alpesh Patel, who was convicted for masterminding thea conspiracy on an industrial scale to supply counterfeit medication. He was handed out a 12 month suspended sentence.

The sentence follows that of his fellow gang member Dr. George Patino, who after pleading guilty was given a three year jail term for supplying counterfeit Viagra.

A father has been spared prison after it was revealed that he planned to sell an illegal erectile dysfunction treatment to friends from his local gym. Andrew Gittins saw the medication online and came up with the idea of selling it for five times what he paid for it.

During the trial the court heard how police discovered the 4,600 Kamagra tablets in his Peterborough house when they raided it as part of a separate investigation. Kamagra is not licensed for sale in the UK as it contains sildenafil, the active ingredient found in Viagra. Viagra is only available with a doctor’s prescription.

The prosecutor in the case, Andrew Scott, said that Kamagra was dangerous as it has not been subjected to the vigorous process of inspection and monitoring that medications must go through in the UK. He called Gittin’s attempts to sell it on “reckless” and “potentially dangerous.”

The father of eight admitted to possessing an authorised medicinal product with the intention of selling it on and was also charged with possessing cannabis and cocaine. He was given a 9-month jail term, which was suspended for two years, and ordered by the court to pay costs of £192.

Further proof of the potential for other uses of the erectile dysfunction drug Viagra came this week when it emerged that the medication saved the life of a baby who was given just weeks to live.

Alfie Oliver was diagnosed with narrow blood vessels around his lungs after he was born and at just a few days old underwent a series of dangerous heart operations to repair the condition. After he suffered a heart attack, his doctors believed there was nothing more to be done to save his life.

The baby was diagnosed with two different conditions, transposition of the great arteries – meaning that his pulmonary artery and aorta were in reversed positions – and pulmonary hypertension. At sixteen days, he was operated on to reverse the position of the arteries but despite a promising start was readmitted to hospital.

Hope came when Great Ormond Street doctors heard about his prognosis and suggested that doses of Viagra might open up his narrow vessels and improve his circulation. The treatment worked, and now Alfie has reached his 1^st birthday, a milestone his parents and family thought they would not ge to see.

The medication has been particularly successful as due to his age, Alfie has experienced none of the side effects usually associated with the drug.

Previous studies have already shown that Viagra can relieve pulmonary hypertension in newborns and may be particularly useful in developing countries, which cannot afford the more expensive drugs usually used to treat the condition.

Boots has launched a scheme which will allow men to buy Viagra from the pharmacist, rather than through a consultation with their doctor. The program has been launched after a pilot trial in Manchester, where men were required to have a half-hour consultation with the pharmacist.

The pilot trial showed that there was a positive reaction to the scheme, as some men found it easier to talk to a relative stranger rather than their family doctor. They also said that they felt uncomfortable bothering their doctor about erectile dysfunction, as they saw it as a natural consequence of aging. In research conducted by Boots, it was revealed that 47% of men would rather suffer from impotence than talk to anyone about it.

This ‘embarrassment factor’ has already led to a massive boom in men seeking medications like Viagra and Cialis over the internet, attracted by the anonymity offered. However, while there are online clinics such as ours which offer the medication legally and with a doctor’s prescription, this internet market has seen many men resort to buying counterfeit drugs.

Impotence can be an early symptom of an underlying problem such as heart disease, so the current regulations required a doctor’s prescription for the medication to make it more likely that such problems could be caught early. It also ensured that the medication would not be given to men with contra-indications for the medicine.

Boots say that during their trial scheme, their half-hour consultation and pre-screening questionnaire lead to over 200 men being referred back to their doctor to get checked out for suspected health problems.

A businessman who created a multi-million pound business empire selling fake Viagra over the internet is today being sentenced. Martin Hickman, 49, had a website called MSH World Traders through which he manipulated the trust of men seeking medication for erectile dysfunction. He funded a millionaire’s lifestyle, with a house in Marbella and a £2.5m Chelsea apartment on the river through the sales of fake medication made in India but designed to look like the real thing.

Hickman was charged with six counts, including dealing in fake and unlicensed medications and laundering £1.4m, after the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency grew suspicious of his website after a routine sweep and launched an investigation. They found that as well as offering herbal aids and sex toys, Mr. Hickman was selling medications that had no license and counterfeit drugs, as well as laundering money through bank accounts in the Cayman Islands, Malta and the Isle of Man.

Martin Hickman had already been sent to jail for 10 months in 1998 for conspiring to trade in steroids, which lead to his being declared bankrupt. Despite this, in 2003 he set up his new business, which also saw him being jailed earlier for 3 months after he ignored an injunction by the MHRA to shut it down.

The case has highlighted the dangers of dishonest businesses using the internet to sell medications that should only be prescribed by a doctor, which are usually counterfeit. Though there are a handful of clinics that operate legally, illegal operations can usually be identified by a lack of General Medical Council doctors doing the prescribing, websites registered outside the UK and medication not dispensed through a bricks-and-mortar UK pharmacy registered with the Royal Pharmaceutical Society. Please visit our consumer precautions page to help you identify sites that may be operation illegally.

Drugs company Pfizer has given a boost to American workers suffering in the economic downturn , promising that those who have lost their jobs and their health insurance since the start of 2009 can receive free medication, including the popular erectile dysfunction medication Viagra, for up to a year. Thus will make millions of Americans eligible for complimentary medication, which as well as Viagra will cover 70 other medications such as the cholesterol-lowering drug Lipitor.

As America does not have universal health care, many workers are totally dependent on health care schemes provided through their employers. Therefore when the recent spate of lay-offs hit the States, many workers were not only faced with a loss of income, but the loss of medication that they had been relying on. Pfizer say that their aim is to help people bridge this difficult point in their lives.

It is believed that the scheme will not only earn Pfizer a massive amount of goodwill, but will also help them ensure that patients stay loyal to Pfizer brands. This has become a focus for the company, as a number of patents on their best-selling medications are set to run out soon, paving the way for other manufacturers to offer generic versions at lower prices. Though Viagra is the best-known erectile dysfunction medication, the company are eager to cement their customers’ loyalty, as newer brands like Cialis take a larger part of the ED medication market share.

Scientists in Miami believe that sildenafil – the medical name for Viagra – may have another medical use in helping new-born babies adjust to breathing outside of the womb. In a trial of 49 babies suffering from failure in their circulation, the medication was shown to lead to a significant improvement in how much oxygen was getting around the body. There was a 92% survival rate amongst the babies who received the drug, compared with the 50% survival rate of the babies who were given the placebo.

In the trials, which took place in three centres in Mexico and El Salvador, the babies were given the drug every six hours from when they were born to three days afterwards. The 2mg/kg adult dose of medication was crushed, diluted and then delivered through a tube.

The discovery is likely to have a particularly significant impact in developing countries. In the West, babies are usually treated with nitric oxide gas, which is inhaled. However in countries with less advanced or well-funded healthcare, this gas is often unavailable or prohibitively expensive.

Babies in the third world who suffer from failure in their systemic or pulmonary circulation make up 90% of cases around the world and due to lack of access to treatment, between 40 and 80% of them die, according to Dr. Amed Soliz, who led the study at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Miami Children’s Hospital. However, even in developing regions, Viagra is inexpensive and easily available. The new use of the drug therefore could bring hope to millions of newborns and their parents. After a series of smaller studies and now this larger test, the next stage is hopefully a comparison between the efficacy of nitric oxide gas and Viagra as a treatment option.

We’re not sure if Pfizer, the makers of Viagra, will be overly loving this celebrity endorsement but superstar rapper Kanye West has dedicated his new single to extolling the popular wonder drug. The single is taken from 88-Keys debut album The Death of Adam and has been co-produced by Kanye.

Entitled “Stay Up (Viagra)”, the track sees the massively popular musician envisaging an old age when perhaps his potency is waning slightly. The lyrics - erm – poignantly capture the trauma faced by millions of men suffering from E.D. “What she got is so Niagara”, he raps sensitively, “Make a young n***** straight need Viagra.” The song continues eloquently, “Just to keep from all the ‘tee-hees’ and laughter/Her telling her home-girls that he couldn't stay up."

Arguments from the partners of ED-afflicted men pointing out that they only ever have reacted sensitively to the condition and would never think of tee-heeing have not yet been responded to. Mr. West has been filming a searing video to accompany his oeuvre. It depicts him and his friend and producer 88-Keys as senior citizens, roaming the streets of Hollywood with what MTV describes as some “honeys” on their arm.

We do hope Lilly and Bayer, makers of Viagra-rivals Cialis and Levitra, don’t get too jealous. What’s next – Fifty-Cent and Snoop-Dog promoting their medications? If any representatives from the companies are reading, please, please, please consider it – you would be making our year…

For all of those vegans out there with erectile dysfunction, there was good news this week from Germany, where researchers have reported results from a clinical trial on an all-natural treatment for impotence. The treatment is cocktail of herbal products, including a herb named tribulus terrestris, which is credited with being extremely potent and is already used in a variety of alternative medicines, as well as maca, a root vegetable found in the Andes, and grape juice extract. The ingredients purport to increase testosterone and improve blood flow. The clinical trials showed that 50 men experienced better sex and had a higher libido than the control group taking Viagra. However there is the possibility that the treatment may have side effects, as two men said they experienced diarrhoea.

The remedy, which has been named “Plantagar”, is due to hit the shelves in 2010, according to reports from German daily newspaper Bild. Further trials are planned to take place later in the year. The very fact that clinical trials are taking place at all is extremely good news, as there have been grave concerns raised about herbal products that claim all kinds of medicinal benefits, from an increased sex drive to weight loss, but have not been tested and frequently don’t work. The herbal remedy industry is worth millions in the U.K alone.

Doctors from Charite hospital in Berlin are hopeful about the future potential of the herbal alternative. Olaf Shroeder, who led the clinical trials, said in a German daily that “Men had much better sex afterwards, more fun in bed and generally felt much better about themselves.” If the treatment is really as good as he’s making out, it’s good news not just for veggies but anyone suffering from erectile dysfunction.

We’re not sure if Pfizer, the makers of Viagra, will be overly loving this celebrity endorsement but superstar rapper Kanye West has dedicated his new single to extolling the popular wonder drug. The single is taken from 88-Keys debut album The Death of Adam and has been co-produced by Kanye.

Entitled “Stay Up (Viagra)”, the track sees the massively popular musician envisaging an old age when perhaps his potency is waning slightly. The lyrics - erm – poignantly capture the trauma faced by millions of men suffering from E.D. “What she got is so Niagara", he raps sensitively, “Make a young n***** straight need Viagra.” The song continues eloquently, “Just to keep from all the ‘tee-hees’ and laughter/Her telling her home-girls that he couldn’t stay up”.

We do hope Lilly and Bayer, makers of Viagra-rivals Cialis and Levitra, don’t get too jealous. What’s next – Fifty-Cent and Snoop-Dog promoting their medications? If any representatives from the companies are reading, please, please, please consider it – you would be making our year…

Many men worldwide have reason to be grateful to the erectile dysfunction drug Viagra, which has allowed them to regain their ability to achieve erections and enjoy a sex life again. However, recent research has indicated that Viagra, or to give it is medical name sildenafil, may have other medical benefits. Researchers at the John Hopkins University School of Medicine have been using mice to investigate sildenafil’s impact in affecting the rate of heart damage in patients with high blood pressure.

The first part of the study identified a protein that scientists believe is key to protecting the body from heart failure, RGS2. In a group of mice with artificially induced chronic high blood pressure, the hearts of those mice engineered without the protein after a week grew 90% heavier, with half of the mice dying of heart failure. However in those mice that did have RGS2 the dangerous expansion of the heart was delayed and there was only 30% expansion. Furthermore, none of those mice died.

The discovery of this protein then lead the scientists to see whether sildenafil might encourage the action of the protein. The entire group of mice - those with and without the protein - were given the drug, and the RSG2-carrying mice displayed better heart function and up to 10% less activity of the enzymes related to stress. The mice without the protein did not show any difference.

The study, which was published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, seems to point the way towards further research into the potential benefits of Viagra as a heart medication. Heart disease is one of the biggest killers in the Western world and elevated blood pressure puts patients at far greater risk of experiencing heart failure. It is to be hoped that a few years down the line will we know more about the RSG2 protein. Sildenafil is currently used to treat pulmonary hypertension in some patients under the brand name Revatio.

Pfizer, the manufacturers of Viagra, have withdrawn an application that would have allowed the drug to be sold in 50 miligram doses over the counter. The application was terminated after the European Medicines Agency raised concerns over the safety of the proposal.

Looking back over previous articles on The Online Clinic news blog it is perhaps surprising to see how often Viagra is in the news headlines- not merely on the blog itself but in the British national media as well. Since it went on the market just over ten years ago the profile of Viagra has remained at the forefront of medicine. This fact, however, is not simply due to the fact that Viagra has helped literally millions of men with Erectile Dysfunction, but that scientists are constantly discovering new uses for the drug.

Since the American Food and Drug Administration approved Viagra for the treatment of Erectile Dysfunction on March 27, 1998 it has revolutionised the treatment of what was, until that time, a largely untreatable condition. It has been a tremendous success both in helping men suffering from ED and in financial terms for Pfizer, the pharmaceutical company that developed and markets the drug. It has also achieved a massive media profile. It is one of the few prescription drugs whose name most adults in the Western World would recognise. It is also a fair assumption to make that most people would know the condition for which the drug was prescribed.

It is just over ten years since that the Food and Drug Administration in the United States licensed Viagra for sale. Considering the profile that the drug has achieved in the media and success it has achieved around the world as an anti-impotence treatment it seems amazing that the drug has been on the market for such a comparatively short amount of time.

In the ten years since Viagra was developed it has helped millions of men around the world. For many years erectile dysfunction problems were put down to psychological problems. It is only since the advent of Viagra that scientists have realised that nearly ninety per cent of impotence problems are a direct result of physiological problems, specifically the supply of blood to the penis. Until a treatment for erectile dysfunction became readily available, that is to say Viagra; there was no way of ascertaining the percentage of psychological cases and those that were physiological. This is not to say that men who have difficulty obtaining or maintaining an erection do not incur psychological problems.

If a man was looking for an anti impotence treatment one might safely assume that he would do so by paying a visit to his GP or having an online consultation with a doctor on a website such as The Online Clinic. It is highly unlikely that he would head to the fruit and vegetable section in his local supermarket.

Viagra was being developed as a treatment for angina when its potential as an anti-impotence treatment was discovered. It was licensed in the U.S.A in 1998 and there are now millions of men around the world who regularly take the drug and who have been delighted with the results.

The medical uses of Viagra have, in the last few years, extended far beyond those for which the drug was originally developed. Although most commonly known as an anti-impotence treatment, Viagra has also been used to open the blood vessels in the hearts of premature babies and to increase the blood supply to the brains of Israeli fighter pilots to improve their flight performance.

Pfizer, the manufacturer of Viagra has been reprimanded by the US Food and Drugs Agency over an advert for the erectile dysfunction medication. The advert, which appeared on the interent, featured a group of men singing a song about Viagra in a recording studio.

According to the FDA the video did not set out the risks associated with taking Viagra so therefore breached the law relating to the advertising of prescription drugs in the US. Pfizer has apologised and has withdrawn the advert with immediate effect.

An advertisement for a so called ‘blue pill’ or other unlicensed drugs purporting to have similar properties to their licensed counterparts might seem to gain credibility when advertised in a magazine or on the internet. The successful prosecution of two men, however, has shown that these scams are, at best, to be avoided as a waste of time and money and, at worst, perilous to the purchaser’s health.

All drugs in this country undergo stringent tests. If advertised drugs haven’t been subjected to this rigorous scrutiny then there is absolutely no telling what someone might be putting into their body when buying unlicensed pills from the internet or from the back pages of magazines.

On 7 February 2008, The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency successfully prosecuted two men at Bradford Magistrates Court for selling unlicensed medicines. David Tetley a retired man of 61 and Stephen Evans who is 49 and unemployed pleaded guilty to the illegal sale and supply of Kamagra, Kamagra Oral Jelly, Apcalis and Loveagra.

These products, as might be ascertained from their names, purport to give the same results as Viagra or Cialis, even though they are not medically proven to do so.

Tetley and Evans advertised the unlicensed and, therefore, illegal drugs in a gay magazine called ‘Shout’. The MHRA was alerted to the content of advertisement, carried out a test purchase and found the drugs to be unlicensed. The defendants were found guilty and fined £545 each.

Mick Deats, Head of Enforcement and Intelligence says "This successful prosecution highlights the robust action the MHRA takes against anyone, even first time offenders such as Tetley and Evans, who commit offences under medicines legislation".

So while these products might seem appealing due to promises made in advertisements and the fact that they are often cheaper than their medically licensed counterparts, the promises made are unproven, the ingredients are unknown and untested and the medical consequences of taking them potentially dangerous. Perhaps they are not such a bargain after all!

Israeli fighter pilots may soon be given Viagra in order to improve their performance at higher altitudes. The drugs work in treating impotence problems by increasing blood flow by relaxing certain arteries. It has been discovered that this increased blood flow may also help fighter pilots who fly at very high altitudes and in stressful situations

Researchers have found, by studying a group of Israeli doctors who were climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, that tadalafil, the active ingredient in the anti-impotence drug Cialis, helped the climbers to ward off fatigue and dizziness at greater heights. The increased supply of blood to the brain and lungs resulted in an increased amount of oxygen reaching these areas than would have been the case if the drug had not been taken.

A Slough man has been sentenced to 250 hours of community service after he was found guilty of selling fake Viagra and Cialis over the internet using Ebay.  In a sting operation he was caught out by undercover agents from Eli Lilly, the owner of Cialis.  The man, who has been named as Azim Dad, continued to sell the fake medication online while he was under investigation by the Medicines anf Healthcare Regulatory Agency.  Mr Dad's house was raided by police and counterfeit medications with a value of £50,000 were discovered.  This case follows a similar one last week where a registered pharmacist from West London was convicted of importing £200,000 of fake Viagra from Pakistan.

It is very difficult knowing who to trust when buying medication online but we have set out some common sense guidelines on our consumer precautions page.  So long as the website is dispensing from a registered pharmacy then the medications that are supplied should all be genuine.  The drug manufacturers have now put in place a number of safeguards to make it extremenly difficult for counterfeit medications to get into the legitimate supply network.  A number of medications now come via a "direct to pharmacy" route, thereby eliminating the possiblility of fake drugs getting to a genuine pharmacy.

The British Medical Association is urging the Government to allow more Viagra to be prescribed free on the NHS.  Currently GPs can only prescribe a small number to certain men who are suffering from other conditions which may be the underlying cause of their erectile dysfunction such as diabetes and Parkinson’s disease.  The BMA wants to stop men from purchasing fake Viagra over the internet and they see this route as being the most effective way of combating this problem.  At the moment it is reckoned that only 10 % of the 2.3 million men in the UK suffering from erectile dysfunction are currently being treated and some are being tempted by low prices on the internet for fake medication.  As we have said many times before, if the price of the medication seems like a bargain then it is probably fake.  The way to deal with this issue is not to make it free to everyone on the NHS as this is unaffordable and the BMA knows this.  The way to ensure that patients are not given fake medication over the internet is for the regulatory authorities to issue kite marks to genuine clinics operating on the internet.  All legitimate online prescribers would have nothing to fear from such a move and with a public education programme the fraudsters would soon be marginalised!

An article has been published in the Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy by the respected psychology professor, Dr David Rowland, who contends that the success of sexual function drugs such as Viagra has diverted attention away from research into the psychological root causes of sexual dysfunction.  There has been an emphasis on the physical resolution of the basic sexual function of achieving an erection but this only goes some way in mending a damaged relationship.  He uses the example of premature ejaculation, where there has been very little research recently into the potential causes of this type of dysfunction and how effective a combination of traditional erectile dysfunction drugs such as Viagra with psychotherapy could yield fruitful results.

Although the professor is right in a number of respects, the problem for a number of couples is not that there is some deep rooted problem in the relationship; it is simply that one of the partners is not able to perform for physical, rather than psychological reasons.  Premature ejaculation is another matter and whilst there is some anecdotal evidence to suggest that ED treatments can provide assistance in this area, we would tend to agree with the professor that some psychotherapy is likely to be of benefit here.

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You might have read in the national press that a number of criminals in London have been jailed for their part in an international conspiracy to supply fake Viagra.  It is apparently the largest ever investigation that the Medicines and Healthcare Regulatory Agency has undertaken into the sale and supply of counterfeit medications.

We are glad to see that our regulator is getting tough with these cowboys who are doing so much to damage the reputation of legitimate online healthcare providers.  All UK websites which supply prescription medications are routinely scrutinised by the MHRA to make sure that we comply with all laws and supply genuine medication from registered pharmacies.  We think that the time has come for the MHRA to start some sort of kite mark scheme whereby the legitimate websites are given some sort of endorsement by the regulator.  This is the only way that consumers are going to be able to differentiate between genuine websites run by healthcare professionals and those running a counterfeit racket.  We have provided some helpful tips on our Consumer Precautions page to enable members of the public make the right decision who to approach but a kite mark scheme would go that extra mile and would give consumers confidence about with who they are dealing.

It is 10 years since Viagra was first prescribed to treat erectile dysfunction in the UK and despite the active ingredient (sildenafil) almost never making it as a medicine, it is now turning out to be a bit of a wonder drug with potential new applications being investigated on a continual basis.

Sildenafil was originally developed as a potential treatment for angina but initial trial results were very disappointing.  The drug seemed to have little impact on the condition and there were more effective competitors on the market.  During one of the patient trials, a doctor discovered that along with other side effects such as indigestion and back pain, this new drug allowed previously impotent men to achieve erections!  This was a potentially very exciting breakthrough so it was immediately reported to Pfizer – the drug’s patent holder.  Five years later the drug was approved, not for treating angina but for erectile dysfunction.

Since the launch in 1997, Viagra has been used by an estimated 30 million men worldwide and despite the emergence of competing products, it remains the top choice for men with ED who use the services of The Online Clinic.

Viagra is now being tested for the following applications: relief of jet lag symptoms; treating stroke victims in the immediate recovery phase; helping underweight babies develop in the womb; and treatment of heart failure patients.  We intend to bring you news of these trials as soon as we have some more information, so please come back in the next few weeks to see if there have been any developments.

It would appear that the erectile dysfunction drug, Viagra, has an effect beyond increasing the blood flow to the penis.  A study at the University of Wisconsin has found that the level of oxytocin secreted by the pituitary gland is increased by three times the normal volume when treated with sildenafil (the generic name for Viagra) following neural stimulation.  The study was performed on rats, not human beings, but there is no reason at this stage to assume that the reaction would be any different.

Oxytocin is a hormone that is important in social interaction and has been linked to sexual stimulation.  This is the first time that Viagra has been linked to a physical effect beyond that of dilating certain blood vessels.  Viagra inhibits the production of PDE5 which causes blood vessels to contract, therefore making the penis unable to support an erection viable for penetration in some males.  In the same way, PDE5 inhibits the production of oxytocin so when the PDE5 production is inhibited, the volume of oxytocin produced increases.  Interestingly, there was no oxytocin produced when the pituitary gland was treated with sildenafil in the absence of neural stimulation.

This research opens the way for further studies into additional uses for this highly popular and successful drug.

Boots, the UK pharmacy chain, is to offer Viagra to men aged 30 to 65 without the need for a prescription.  However, don’t get too excited: the scheme only applies to three branches of the company in Manchester and it will not be like popping into the pharmacy for a packet of aspirin!  Anyone wishing to take advantage of the scheme being offered will be required to have a consultation with one of the group’s pharmacists for which they will charge a fee as well as the cost of the medication.  As erectile dysfunction can be a marker for other diseases, quite rightly, Boots will make patients have a blood test to determine if there is an underlying cause that should be treated.  If you want to have repeat prescription, patients will first be required to have a consultation with a private doctor for which a further fee will be levied.  Despite all the headlines in the newspapers, Viagra remains a prescription medication which can only be taken under the direction of a healthcare professional.

If the pilot scheme is successful, Boots may roll it out to other stores.

On 22^nd January 2007 a California clinic that treats AIDS patients issued a lawsuit against the manufacturer of Viagra for “unjust and illegal conduct” in marketing the drug. The AIDS Healthcare Foundation has demanded that Pfizer discontinue what it termed “deceptive” advertising practices and begin educating users about the danger of spreading sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV and AIDS, when using the drug.

In addition, the complaint maintains that Pfizer markets the pills “in a way that associates the drug with sports and excitement” and “as a recreational sexual enhancement drug for younger men.” When used for this purpose, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation also alleged that Viagra encourages gay men to engage in risky sex as it purportedly enables men to overcome the erection inhibiting effects of drugs such as crystal methamphetamine and also alcohol and ecstasy.

Surely this is yet another example of litigation gone mad in America. The plaintiffs clearly have forgotten that Viagra is a prescription only drug in America as well as here in the UK. Any person wishing to purchase genuine Viagra has to go through a doctor, either online or face to face. The lawsuit also suggests that people are stupid and that it is the fault of Viagra that people are having unprotected sex while on illegal drugs. Do they not for one minute think that it might be the mind-bending effects of the crystal meths that cause people to throw caution to the wind and dispense with the normal practice of wearing a condom? To say that it is the fault of Viagra because it allows them to have an erection when the illegal drugs being consumed might otherwise preclude such an event is quite frankly ludicrous!

It appears that Pfizer Inc. is about to apply to the Food and Drugs Agency in the US for Viagra to be sold over the counter at pharmacies without a prescription (OTC.) Pfizer has never before commented publicly on its plans for Viagra, but it is believed that competition from Eli Lilly’s Cialis has forced the company to consider making Viagra more freely available.

Industry analysts have indicated that it is highly unlikely that Viagra will achieve over the counter status as the complications that can arise if combined with other medications can be very serious – even fatal – so it is essential that a doctor makes the judgement whether Viagra is a suitable medication. Patients being treated for heart problems such as angina, for example, may be taking a nitrate based medication which, if taken in combination with Viagra, could cause blood pressure to fall to dangerously low levels.

Viagra was considered for OTC status by the MHRA in the UK a few years ago but this was not approved.