Saturday, May 28, 20054
Blindness and Viagra
"The Food and Drug Administration said yesterday that it had received reports of partial vision loss in 38 men taking Viagra, the impotence drug, and among 4 men taking Cialis, a newer competitor."
It has long been known that Viagra can affect vision in 1 to 10% of cases - mainly color changes, or blurred or increased sensitivity to light. Blindness caused by Naion (nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy) is new. Note that the link to Viagra has not been definitively proven yet.
This is another example of how "lifestyle" medications and its overmarketing is not as harmless as it seems. Hopefully, this can be another wakeup call to consumers: think twice about demanding drugs you see on TV.
Update:
Medpundit opines on this.
"The Food and Drug Administration said yesterday that it had received reports of partial vision loss in 38 men taking Viagra, the impotence drug, and among 4 men taking Cialis, a newer competitor."
It has long been known that Viagra can affect vision in 1 to 10% of cases - mainly color changes, or blurred or increased sensitivity to light. Blindness caused by Naion (nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy) is new. Note that the link to Viagra has not been definitively proven yet.
This is another example of how "lifestyle" medications and its overmarketing is not as harmless as it seems. Hopefully, this can be another wakeup call to consumers: think twice about demanding drugs you see on TV.
Update:
Medpundit opines on this.
Comments
-
Anonymous
Before getting on your high horse,how about we find out what the natural rate of this condition is,in people who have enough vascular disease to need viagra. Who knows it could be higher.
-
Anonymous
It would be nice to know the incidence of this problem in patients with vascular disease. It might even be lower on viagra. Until we know,i think we should be carefulin our pronouncements,They just make it easy for the lawyers.
-
Sudeep Bansal
Pfizer has posted a statement regarding Viaga and blindness on its website.
-
Maurice Bernstein, M.D.
I beg to disagree with the definition of Viagra as a "lifestyle" medication. Hopefully, physicians who prescribe this medication have taken a history and done a physical exam to establish a medical need for the drug as they should with every drug prescribed. If they are prescribing for specific organic or psychologic disease then it is being dispensed for a disease which interferes with a normal healthy function. If one wants to condsider Viagra as a "lifestyle" medication, so be it since it is the role of medicine, beyond simply treating a disease with no consideration of psycho-social factors, to attempt to normalize the patient's life and try to provide a better quality of life. At least that is the academic consensus of a goal of medicine as defined for the teaching of first and second year medical school students. ..Maurice.
Post a Comment »11:21 AM
Its simiar to the recent crestoe hype. If anyone reads the original study [ retrospective] ,it clearly shows all statins to be extremely safe drugs.
11:25 AM
"Most of the reported cases in which NAION has occurred in men taking Viagra have involved patients with underlying anatomic or vascular risk factors associated with the development of NAION."
The complete article can be read at http://www.pfizer.com/are/news_releases/2005pr/mn_2005_0527.html
12:41 PM
7:53 PM