Ten years of Viagra - Little blue pill may yet offer more

IT HAS been used by more than 30 million men and exists only because of side effects discovered in a Welsh village while testing a drug aimed at treating angina.

It has given rise to more than 30 million bad jokes and it is still, sometimes ever so tenuously, involved with affairs of the heart.

Viagra may become far more than a treatment for male impotence. Ten years on it may turn out to be as versatile as aspirin. Conditions being assessed for treatment with the little blue pill include jet lag, heart failure, premature ejaculation, diabetes symptoms, multiple sclerosis, pain, premature birth, chronic pelvic pain, memory loss, Reynaud’s phenomenon, and strokes.

If it does have potential in other areas it will indeed become a superdrug, one that has already allowed millions of users to ensure that when the heart is willing it is not alone. One that has allowed millions of men to avoid that crushing silence in the bedroom when there’s no other option but to talk.

It has become one of the perfect symbols for modern Ireland. As Caroline O’Doherty suggests in her article today, Pfizer’s choice of Ireland as its Viagra production centre, in Ringaskiddy, Co Cork, was inspired: “We couldn’t have chosen a better symbol of our country’s rebirth... long associated with struggle and depression, Ireland was now exporting pleasure to the world.”

Argentine rugby fans recovering from the opening ceremonies of the World Cup at Stade de France in Paris last night will undoubtedly suggest that the reason they are using the little blue pill is because research at Universidad Nacional de Quilmes in Buenos Aires hints that it may speed up recovery from jet lag.

Hopefully that is the case, for as far as Irish rugby fans are concerned, Argentina are already potent enough.