March 27, 1998
First developed to treat hypertension and angina, the pill that put Pfizer on the map was a pure fluke. The researchers have indeed realized that their molecule (sildenafil citrate) does not ultimately increase blood circulation to the heart, as hoped, but rather elsewhere… Unhoped for, you say?
37 million men
The discovery arouses instant enthusiasm. When we know that there was no way to treat erectile dysfunction at the time (except for painful or humiliating treatments, think injections and suppositories in the urethra), we can better measure the enthusiasm. In the first days after the launch, doctors are writing up to 10,000 prescriptions a day, an article from the Time of the year (1998). In the first two weeks after market, more than 150,000 prescriptions are written in the United States. Between 1998 and 2013 (and the arrival of generic pills), an estimated 37 million men used Viagra.
Source: magazine Challenges
Liberation?
According to the magazine’s founder and editor PenthouseBob Guccione, Viagra was supposed to “unleash men’s libido” and above all pull the rug out from under feminists, who are, according to him, responsible for having “emasculated the American male” by putting too much pressure on men .
Source : time magazine2018
1 of 3
This is the proportion of men over 40 who suffer from “male impotence” at one time or another. If the statistics are very variable from one study to another, only one thing remains: the percentages increase with age.
Sources: European Urology2002
27 minutes
This is the average time that the pill takes before acting, for an average duration of four or five hours. Note that the pill does not act on desire, which is also essential (in addition to one form or another of stimulation) for the magic – as they say – to work.
The most famous, but also the most counterfeit
In 2021, US customs seized US$16.3 million worth of fake little blue pills. Almost ubiquitous fakes online, warn authorities. A counterfeit that does not date from yesterday. Already 25 years ago, just after the marketing of Viagra, fakes designed in Thailand and India were sold at high prices on the internet. To distinguish them, it is suggested to make sure of the blue of the pill, the f of the Pfizer, the diamond shape, etc. Be that as it may, the experts are unanimous: online, there is a great risk that the pills are fake.
Source: drugs.com
Alternative uses
If it first targets generally older men struggling with erectile dysfunction, a so-called “recreational” use of Viagra is becoming popular very quickly. A year after its marketing, we can already see its popularity with young partygoers, a phenomenon that worries medical authorities to this day. As early as 2012, an American study estimated that 8% of young people use Viagra and other similar drugs to reassure themselves in their sexual performance.
Source: Agence France-Presse
Hazards
The news received little publicity, and yet: last year, a study by British Columbia researchers and published in the medical journal Jama Ophthalmology shows that Viagra subscribers are up to 85% more at risk of developing eye problems, such as retinal detachment, as the pill affects blood flow to the eyes. This is the first time that a large epidemiological study has come to such an association.
Unpublished use
Israeli and Australian researchers have found that a small concentration of Viagra added to your cut flower water can double the life of your bouquets. It can’t be invented, and it’s even been demonstrated.
Source : British Medical Journal
Petition
In 2020, a man from La Prairie tabled a petition in the National Assembly demanding reimbursement of the blue pill by the Régie de l’assurance maladie du Québec. You should know that Viagra is always on a short exclusion list, as well as drugs prescribed for cosmetic purposes or to treat baldness. The file has been “under study” ever since.
Viagra embodies the beginning of the commercialization of erectile dysfunction. […] A marketing effort […] that promises a quick fix [quick fix] to a problem […] which may or may not settle anything, since we are not dealing here with the body as a whole, the relationship as a whole, nor with critically addressing the social ideals surrounding masculinity and sexuality . In other words: “A hard penis is not always the best solution to a relationship problem or a self-esteem problem.”
Meika Loe, professor of sociology at Colgate University in New York and author of Rise of Viagra: How the Little Blue Pill Changed Sex in AmericaNew York University Press, 2004.
And Viagra for women, in all this?
The news is not great on this side. In 2015, the American authorities approved Addyi, a drug that would help fight the decline in desire in women, renamed “Viagra for women”. The news caused a stir and sparked as much debate as hope. It must be said that sales never took off. Its limited effectiveness and its many side effects, not to mention all its contraindications, are certainly not unrelated to this. New tile: last year, a pharmaceutical company from Quebec (Endoceutics), to which we owe a vaginal egg (Intrarosa), considered again as a kind of female Viagra to treat vaginal atrophy associated with menopause, declared itself insolvent.