When Google Translation is on, topics and messages in this group will be machine-translated to your language by Google.
| Category: | Other |
| Created: | Sep 9, 2008 |
| Type: | Moderated |
| Members: | 1 |
| Owner: | василий иванов |
| Language: | Russian |
| Country: |
Viagra, how quickly it has entered our lexicon! The most successful new drug introduction ever, Viagra racked up record first-year sales for pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, $788 million (U.S.) worldwide in 1998. In Canada, sales hit $4 million (Canadian) in the first full month on the market in April this year [1999]. Unabashedly, the little blue pill has made talk of male impotence, and the quest for good s@x, respectable topics of everyday conversation and humour.
Viagra has caused a subtle but nonetheless important change in the way we perceive pills. For the first time Viagra has made the recreational use of drugs acceptable in the mainstream. Purportedly a treatment for a medical condition – male erectile dysfunction – Viagra is mostly taken by healthy males who can achieve an erection but want to enhance s@xual enjoyment. For these men (and women) taking Viagra is a quality-of-life issue, not a medical one. In this sense, Viagra is the first widely accepted ‘lifestyle drug’.
The huge success of Viagra has spawned imitations, particularly ones made with herbs. The Internet search engine, Alta Vista, returned 461 web sites for ‘herbal viagra’. And these are just the brave ones, because the unauthorized use of the word “viagra” is known to elicit a threatening letter from Pfizer’s lawyers in defense of its registered trademark. For example, a British company tried to market a herbal s@x-enhancing product called “Viagrene” and was stopped by Pfizer’s lawyers.
No doubt Pfizer is behind a current ban on Viagra alternatives in China. There, herbal drug companies rushed to offer their own versions of s@x-enhancing potions. One called “Weige,” or Big Brother, was confidently projected to sell 100 million pills this year before the government banned Viagra look-alikes.
Over the past year reports about herbal viagra alternatives have appeared in news. An African version called “Vuka Vuka,” or Wake Up, Wake Up, is now the most popular drug in Zimbabwe according to the Zimbabwe Independent newspaper. It is liquid extract made of unspecified herbs that is taken only once a month and is claimed to be better than Viagra. 2009
© 2003-2009 hi5 Networks
|
English
| Americas | Europe | Eastern Europe Asia Pacific |
