drug
Viagra soon without a prescription? Sharing would have advantages and disadvantages
On January 25th, a panel of experts from the drug authority BfArM in Bonn will advise on the release of the active ingredient sildenafil from the prescription requirement. Photo: Richard Drew/AP/dpa
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So far, the baby blue tablets are only available on prescription. In the future, Viagra and other sexual enhancers might just be available in pharmacies. That would have advantages – but also great risks.
“One nose drop, a bottle of cough syrup and another packet of Viagra.” Such orders could perhaps soon be part of everyday life in pharmacies.
On January 25th, a panel of experts from the drug authority BfArM in Bonn will advise on the release of the active ingredient sildenafil from the prescription requirement.
If the recommendation comes like this and the Federal Ministry of Health sticks to it, Viagra and other sexual enhancers would become prescription-free. A good idea?
Prof. Frank Sommer, President of the German Society for Men and Health, sees advantages and disadvantages. In his eyes, the biggest pro would be that the bottom would be pulled out of the black market on the Internet. “We did a study a few years ago, where we examined 22 products that can be ordered freely on the Internet and found that more than 80 percent did not contain what was stated. For example, we had a group where the dose was four times as high.” If you take it regularly, you have a very high risk of heart damage. The scientists also found contamination with heavy metals, for example.
original and fake
A distinction must be made between the black market with counterfeit branded products and online offers from doctors, where the interested party first fills out a medical questionnaire and then, if necessary, Viagra or another drug is prescribed and sent from abroad. According to Sommer, one can at least assume that one is receiving the original product. However, the price is not without: Four of the baby blue Viagra diamond tablets can cost around 60 euros.
Sommer, who was the first doctor to be appointed professor of men’s health in 2005, also sees some disadvantages if sildenafil should be available without a prescription in the future. “An erectile dysfunction, if it is vascular, is a harbinger of a heart attack or stroke. We can see that by examining the blood vessels about eight years in advance. And then you still have time to take appropriate countermeasures. But if you don’t even go to the doctor’s office, you don’t have to.”
Lack of treatment with serious consequences
If the underlying disease is not treated, the erectile dysfunction will continue to worsen. “Nerves can be damaged, the infrastructure of the penis, the blood vessels that lead to the penis – there are many causes, and that’s why it takes up to three hours to find out. If this does not happen, however, the suffering will continue to worsen. And you therefore need an ever higher dose to still achieve an erection. Until at some point even the highest is no longer enough. But if you only go to the doctor then, it is often too late for a cure.”
Another risk: the patient may not have an overview of which drugs are incompatible with sildenafil. “There are heart medications that have nitrates.” If these were taken together with sildenafil, a so-called hypotensive shock leading to death could result.
Difficult consideration
The decision to release the prescription requirement is therefore a difficult consideration. “I would advise listening to both sides,” says Sommer. “The pharmaceutical side, which advocates the release, but also the independent scientists.”
Overall, the discovery of sildenafil as a sexual enhancer by the US group Pfizer was “a godsend,” says Sommer. On the one hand, because the subject of erectile dysfunction has emerged from the taboo zone as a result of extensive media coverage. And secondly, because this resulted in a series of scientific investigations.
“Then it was only just shown that the condition of the penis vessels can predict a heart attack. Since then, diabetes has also been diagnosed much earlier.” In the 1980s, however, the prevailing view was that 90 percent of erectile dysfunction was psychological. “Today, the state of the art is that it’s exactly the opposite: 80 to 90 percent have physical causes, and then the fear of failure might come on top of that.”