When that Viagra saves lives

Tanisha was born in December to Subrata and Dipa Saha of Kolkata, India. From the outside, Tanisha looked healthy and strong with no visible signs of frailty or sickness. However, Tanisha was born with a rare congenital heart defect. According to Cardiac surgeon K.R. Balakrishnan of Malar Hospital, Tanisha was born with a hole in her heart and her heart was on the wrong side of her body. Her right lung was also underdeveloped. During the risky, four-hour operation to save her life, Dr Balakrishnan confirmed he gave Tanisha some Viagra tablets when her blood pressure rose and her blood began flowing in the wrong direction to the heart. Her blood pressure dropped and Viagra was credited with saving Tanisha’s life.

Doctors at Royal Victoria Infirmary Tyneside, Newcastle, said they used Viagra as a last resort to save the life of a premature baby. Lewis Goodfellow, born at 24 weeks and weighing just 1lb 8oz, had one of his lungs not functioning and not enough oxygen was getting into his bloodstream. At the point when the doctors had told Lewis’s parents that they couldn’t give their baby any more oxygen because the ones that had been given him had not been taken up by Lewis’s blood vessels, they decided to try one last ditch experiment. They gave Lewis sildenafil citrate, commonly known as Viagra. Incredibly, their experiment worked. The baby survived.

In explaining the doctors’ decision to administer Viagra on little Lewis, Alan Fenton, consultant neonatologist at the hospital, said that the problem they had observed in premature babies who had breathing difficulties was that there was not enough blood supply to various areas of their lungs to take the oxygen around the rest of their body, even when oxygen was blown into the babies’ lungs to help them. Sildenafil citrate could help open up the tiny blood vessels of the babies to allow for the capture of oxygen which could then be taken to the other parts of the body.

In these two factual stories, the decision of the doctors to administer real Viagra tablets might not be unconnected with the knowledge that the drug exhibits its erectile function by dilating the blood vessels of its users. Synthesised originally for use as a treatment for hypertension and angina pectoris, the drug, after being discovered could induce erection in men, became approved as an oral treatment for erectile dysfunction. Available as a prescription drug by doctors, sildenafil citrate was directly advertised to consumers on United States television (Viagra was famously endorsed by soccer legend Pele and former United States senator Bob Dole).

A great number of internet sites now offer Viagra for sale on their websites, after an online consultation, often filling an online questionnaire. The internet has helped drive the Viagra revolution and is the first choice for anyone who wants to buy Viagra online with no prescription. Such is the popularity of the drug that a lot of aphrodisiacs now use the Viagra brand as a marketing tool, often calling themselves ‘herbal Viagra’ or imitating the diamond-shape and blue colour of the drug, mainly targeting the unsuspecting vast number of people who want to buy Viagra cheap deals.

In 2000 alone, Viagra accounted for 92 percent of global sales for prescribed erectile dysfunction tablets. The sales of Viagra however plummeted by approximately 50 percent in 2007 after the entry of Cialis and Levitra, among other factors.

Informally known as ‘the Blue Pill’ or ‘Vitamin V’, Boots the chemist announced in February of the same 2007 that a pilot scheme of over the counter sales of Viagra would be tested. Under the scheme, the drug would be available in three of Boots’ stores in Manchester to eligible men between 30 and 65.