'I can dance like a butterfly, sting like a bee One of these capsules you can play with me Viagra's the name, stimulation's the game It makes me feel like Superman . . .' RM Project, Get It Up SEPTUAGENARIAN playboy Hugh Hefner does not leave home without it. The recently remarried Rupert Murdoch is said to be a keen user. It is banned in Iraq, huge in Japan, and was recently given the thumbs-up in Oman. Australian war veterans want it for free. And one young Singapore man wishes he had never heard of it.
'It', of course, is Viagra, or sildenafil citrate, Pfizer's 'pfantastic' discovery that has put a gleam back in many a tired eye. Since its launch in the United States last year, the diamond-shaped blue anti-impotency pill has been turning the droopiest old men into Austin Powers clones. Wide-eyed wives and trophy bimbos are running for cover.
Viagra was launched in Hong Kong in February, and interest in the pill here has mirrored the rapturous reception it has received in most markets. More than 1,000 men are now taking it on prescription through hospital clinics, and thousands more get it from their doctors.
Unwisely, some opt to obtain it from friends, buy it on the black market or succumb to the digital deluge of 'Order Viagra Now!!' Internet sites. Safe and largely side-effect-free under a doctor's supervision, there have been some alarming reactions documented for those who do not play by the rules.
More than 130 Viagra-linked deaths have been reported by the US Food and Drug Administration - mostly heart patients who were also taking nitrate-based drugs. No deaths or serious side-effects have thus far been reported in Hong Kong. But in Singapore recently a man in his 30s who purchased the drug on the black market had an erection that lasted three days and was admitted to hospital, where doctors had to use hollow needles to drain the blood from his penis.
Afterwards, it was discovered fibrous tissue had replaced the normal tissue. He is now permanently impotent.