28 May, 2005 22:56 GMT
The NAION form of blindness is caused by the same set of factors that can lead to impotence: middle age, high-blood pressure, high cholesterol readings and high sugar levels. 'There's no evidence that this type of vision loss has occurred any more in men (with those risk factors) who have taken Viagra than those who haven't.'
Maybe your mother should have warned you about this, too. At least 38 men who have reached for the impotence pill Viagra have gone blind or suffered some vision loss, according to federal regulators and the company that makes the drug,
Pfizer Inc.
The US
Food and Drug Administration also received four reports of blindness in men who have taken the impotence drug Cialis, and one report of a fellow who used Levitra, FDA spokeswoman Susan Cruzan said.
But Cruzan said there was no reason for users to panic.
"We are working with the manufacturers to inform the public about these reports," Cruzan said. "But we haven't established whether there's a cause-and-effect relationship."
Same Set of Factors
Even so, Cruzan said the makers of Cialis,
Ely Lilly & Co. and
Icos Corp., have already agreed to add a warning to the drug label, alerting doctors to the danger.
Pfizer spokesman Daniel Watts said the New York drug giant was considering doing the same with Viagra. But Watts insisted the company had seen no cases of blindness in 103 clinical trials encompassing some 13,000 patients.
He also noted this form of blindness, which goes by the acronyn NAION, is caused by the same set of factors that can lead to impotence: middle age, high-blood pressure, high cholesterol readings and high sugar levels.
"There's no evidence that this type of vision loss has occurred any more in men (with those risk factors) who have taken Viagra than those who haven't," said Watts.
Over a Billion Viagra Pills Dispensed
An impotence specialist at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center seconded that opinion.
"I've never heard of anything like this until today," said Dr. Abraham Morgentaler, a Harvard Medical School professor and author of "The Viagra Myth."
Morgentaler noted that Viagra has been sold since 1998. "There are over a billion (Viagra) pills that have been dispensed," he said. "It would be remarkable to me that something like this wouldn't have shown up until now."
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