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September 3, 2003
The Way We Love Now
Ever since its launch in 1998, Viagra has been a dream drug for Pfizer. In just the last packaged it in a rhomboid, sky-blue pill that year the company saw $1.7 billion in sales. became as iconic as the twin arches of a But Pfizer will soon have competition from certain burger franchise. Since its launch, 500 million pills have been sold at rhino-horn market it once had all to itself. Levitra is prices. Pfizer had three million users in the supposed to have a quicker onset of action U.S. but that is a fraction of the 30 million or not. Cialis's merit is that it lasts for 36 hours (which fact a woman friend pointed bringing this reluctant group in to see the foreplay). Touted as more "natural," in that dysfunction will become more common. The one can ingest the pill Friday night and market will swell but Viagra will not be the theoretical y be armed for action till the wee hours of Sunday, Cialis is dubbed "le weekender" in Europe. What does expanding usage of these drugs mean to society and what new myths will Consider how we arrived in these priapic Viagra and its clones create? Will women times and pity the men of bygone eras who view the pil s as a blessing or will they ingested the genitals of goats, chewed tiger wonder, to paraphrase Mae West, "Is that a pill in your gullet or are you just happy to see almost driving that species to extinction. me?" Women will have to contend with men who in theory can be potent till their last treatment of erectile dysfunction (the term breath. Indeed the last breath may come at du jour for this ancient problem) was exactly an inopportune moment if the heart, unlike that other organ, is not up to the task. When business is today: an abundance of snake- Viagra first came out there were tabloid tales abandoned wives to forage in more youthful pastures. There were of course many more scientist who'd injected a drug into the base who found renewed satisfaction in existing of his penis before speaking, dropped his relationships, but that story rarely makes the aisles and allowed fellow urologists to marvel at his breakthrough. A behaviorist might argue that if we create the physical capability, we are also creating As a demonstration of matter over mind it the desire and thus fundamental y changing was potent -- but understandably not for the organism. Peter Kramer, in "Listening to Prozac," wrote about the possibility of that a drug called sildenafil citrate could boost the chemical messengers that cause cases "better" than the original self. Will an erection after arousal, we had at last arrived at a solution for Everyman. Pfizer metaphorical implications of these names) elevate us to a being more interesting than 100 million HIV infections in the world by our original? Indeed Viagra TV ads imply just this with "Joe" walking into the office and his coworkers trying to guess what's famine and malaria raise the possibility of different about him: A new haircut? Is he public health catastrophes in the near future working out? A vacation? Joe never lets on not seen since the great plagues of Europe. to the secret that only he, his doctor and a In such times Viagra and its clones strike an few million viewers are privy to: He owes his odd note. They seem to hold a mirror up to prosthetic joints, tummy tucks, laser peels technology, is not value-neutral even though and anything that enables a youthful lifestyle or at least the appearance of one will be technology here is outwardly so simple, so aesthetic plastic surgery, Viagra and its shortcomings: swallow little pil , rise to the peers are, for many, "enhancement" occasion, attain tantric nirvana, descend to medicine: they're not treating a disease but baseline -- but what is the baseline and has trying to make "ideal" a flagging drugs like Viagra will change relationships, finding much use in young sexually active and will alter the nature of growing old. We men, perhaps as insurance against a flop hope it will be for the better though we hormones for short kids, the question is coming advertising blitz for Levitra (with when is a good thing unnecessary, when is Mike Ditka as spokesman) and with Viagra linking its name to Nascar and pro-baseball, It is sobering to stack the millions that will be I feel the urge to take a walk, to look around, spent in drug development and marketing, and the billions consumers and insurers will pay for these new drugs, against the global intimacy -- before the hype of these pills health picture. Mathematical models predict Dr. Verghese is the director of the Center for Medical Humanities and Ethics, University of Texas Health Sciences Center, San Antonio. His most recent book is "The Tennis Partner" (HarperCollins, 1998).

Source: http://www.abrahamverghese.com/images/WSJ_WayWeLoveNow.pdf