Happy Birthday, UK-92480!

September 4, 2007 2:40 AM

Viagra turns 15 todayIt nearly didn't make it as an angina drug, but a few chaps participating in its clinical trial in Merthyr Tydfil reported an unexpected and now very well known side-effect. The aptly named Albert Wood, and his colleague Peter Dunn, look to have missed the money shot though. Now, it seems the Blue Diamond can help with almost anything. Good to see us Brits making a positive contribution to human relations.
posted by Myeral (25 comments total)

Is it true that Jackie Gleason invented tadalafil, in an attempt to achieve TLI?
posted by rob511 at 3:05 AM on September 4, 2007

Good to see us Brits making a positive contribution to human relations.

Allow me to extend my thanks for the Yanks.
posted by hal9k at 3:05 AM on September 4, 2007 [1 favorite]

Presumably the exponential growth of spam is 15 years old later this year.
posted by vbfg at 3:09 AM on September 4, 2007

The aptly named Albert Wood, and his colleague Peter Dunn...

"Peter Dunn" seems even more aptly named (at least as a description of the condition that leads people to Viagra).
posted by ubiquity at 3:34 AM on September 4, 2007 [2 favorites]

My favorite Viagra story: I was pediatric resident right around the time that sildenafil was found to be potentially useful for the treatment of primary pulmonary hypertension in infants.

There was nothing better than having the chance to write an order for Viagra for a baby in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.
posted by scblackman at 3:38 AM on September 4, 2007

Those of us looking forward to a quiet retirement curse you!
posted by maxwelton at 3:53 AM on September 4, 2007

H-@-P-Y BD@Y V-{!}@G{r}4 !!!!
posted by NewBornHippy at 3:55 AM on September 4, 2007 [9 favorites]

Is there a viagra baby boomlet?
posted by R. Mutt at 4:14 AM on September 4, 2007

I'm going to celebrate by having one of those 4 hour hard-ons they talk about in all of the commercials.
posted by Muddler at 5:35 AM on September 4, 2007

I'm not sure if ubiquity or NewBornHippy wins...
posted by sfts2 at 6:12 AM on September 4, 2007

And May-September trophy wives everywhere have been cursing Pfizer ever since....
posted by sock it to me monkey at 6:58 AM on September 4, 2007

Angina, priapism... why do all these words have to sound so dirty?
posted by Brittanie at 7:06 AM on September 4, 2007

so according to wikipedia, the patents on vi@gra cancel around 2011-2013. Since v!aagra is already one of the most-prescribed drugs ever, I wonder if its only going to increase in popularity when it gets to be $5 a bottle?
posted by Avenger at 7:09 AM on September 4, 2007

Very stiff lower lipp indeed Albert and Peter.
posted by homodigitalis at 7:16 AM on September 4, 2007

Is there a viagra baby boomlet?

God I hope not. One was way more than enough. Thank the lord they invented the other Pill (the one turning 50) before the Boomers hit maturity!
posted by Pollomacho at 7:37 AM on September 4, 2007

We should dump it into the water supply in Iraq. So we can stand down.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 7:55 AM on September 4, 2007

Is there a viagra baby boomlet?

Blue Babies?!
posted by homodigitalis at 7:56 AM on September 4, 2007

This post is obviously a ploy by Matt to get rich from Adsense.
posted by jewzilla at 8:12 AM on September 4, 2007

"If your erection lasts more than 4 hours, call your doctor"

Hell, I'm calling EVERYBODY.
posted by sidereal at 8:15 AM on September 4, 2007 [2 favorites]

Viagra should really be over the counter. My feeling is that the reason it isn't is purely moral, similar to the reaction against Plan B, the morning after pill.
posted by Justinian at 10:27 AM on September 4, 2007

Viagra: available over the counter so you can be too.
posted by salishsea at 10:36 AM on September 4, 2007

nothing better than having the chance to write an order for Viagra for a baby

That sounds like the start, just the very very tip, of an unhealthy thought process.
posted by CynicalKnight at 10:46 AM on September 4, 2007

No, because Viagra is for good and righteous men who, through no fault of their own, have been rendered impotent while in the prime of their lives, whereas Plan B is needed by loose moral-less women who seek to destroy America.

Also, it funds terrorism.
posted by quin at 10:55 AM on September 4, 2007

Perfect -- I just discovered Kottke's collection of images from penis enlargement spam. [NSFW]
posted by churl at 12:35 PM on September 4, 2007

The Viagra seminar.

When I was in grad school in 1998, one of the lead chemists who was on the team that developed the first synthesis of Sildenafil came and gave a seminar. The News About Viagra was just hitting the mainstream press and everyone was agog: despite his relatively low academic status as a process chemist, the lecture hall at Cambridge was full to capacity: about as full as when EJ Corey (Nobel Laureate) talked there.

His seminar was much better than Corey's: and not just because of the topicality of the subject matter. In-between the line drawings, reaction yields, pharmacokinetics and normal Orgo gobbledygook, his stories were quite amusing, and very well told. Viz:


i) Suspicions were aroused (pardon the pun) when the not-so-effective heart medication trial ended, most of the older patients 'lost' their remaining samples. A couple of old honest geezers actually asked to keep it, but were strangely reticent why.


ii) When the 'side effect' became apparent, as with all modern medicine, the effect had to be quantitated and measured : this was before the development of statistically valid surveys such as this one. An ingenious (yet simple) method was developed: a piece of string with a small weight was attached to the, ahem, member, and the gentleman was given materials to aid in the production of an erection, while standing with the weight hanging parallel to a vertical scale. The amount of and time at maximum vertical weight displacement with viagra-d and placebo-d gentlemen was measured: a statistically valid correlation was observed between Sildenafil consumption and these two metrics.


iii) As a reward for the soon-to-be-billions him and his team were to make Pfizer, the first kilo* of Viagra that rolled of the production plant sits on this guy's desk encased in plastic: he uses it as a paperweight. I wanted to ask "Does it have 'in case of emergency, break plastic', engraved on it?", but alas the other professors had serious chemistry questions.


iv) Just before the end of the Q&A section, one of the pluckier undergrads blurted out "Does it work on women?". The guy pauses: even though this is the UK and not the US, this is a delicate question: academe is notoriously PC and he's a direct representative of Pfizer, who may be quoted in the press.

His answer was great. I paraphrase roughly: "Initial investigations do not seem to suggest so " -pause- "However, as everyone in this room knows, the female human's sexual response is far more subtle than the males. "


Seminars like these put the lie to the oft-stated nostrum that "Chemistry is Dull".

Needless to say, I am now an assistant professor of organic chemistry.


--


To give you some idea, 1kg of viagra contains ca. 10,000 generous doses.
posted by lalochezia at 7:18 PM on September 4, 2007