San Francisco has petitioned federal regulators to warn that the anti-impotence drugs like Viagra use could increase the risk of sexually transmitted disease and HIV, officials said on Monday.
The request to the Food and Drug Administration earlier this month is a response to recreational use of Viagra among gay men who use it to enhance promiscuous sex.
“The predominant problem that we see in San Francisco is that widespread use among gay men with multiple partners,” said Jeffrey Klausner, director of sexually transmitted disease prevention at the city’s health department.
“It increases their ability to have more sex partners, particularly in multiple partner environments, and reverses the chemical impotence associated with methamphetamine and crystal use,” Klausner said.
By petitioning the FDA, San Francisco’s Department of Public Health has triggered a 180-comment period for the agency to review the issue. It also comes at a time when Viagra’s manufacturer Pfizer is airing a new advertising campaign with a friskier tone to encourage use of the drug.
San Francisco Department of Public Health officials seek a health warning on Viagra and similar drugs such as Levitra, sold by GlaxoSmithKline Plc and Bayer AG, and Cialis, sold by Eli Lilly & Company and Icos Corp. “Viagra use may increase the risk for sexually transmitted diseases and HIV infection,” was one suggested warning.
Viagra generated sales of $1.9 billion in 2003.
Greater physical risk
For all the smiles of middle-aged couples portrayed in these commercials, San Francisco health officials say they know of 10 men in the city who used Viagra and developed HIV.
“We think that because of the increased duration of erection, the increased blood flow, that actually increases the physical risk of getting an STD or HIV infection when having sex with an infected partner,” Klausner told Reuters.
The Stop AIDS Project in San Francisco said a third of gay men they interviewed on the street had used Viagra. “It is well-known in the gay community that Viagra is used as a recreational drug,” said Darlene Weide, the group’s director.
In recent years, U.S. public health officials have reported higher rates of sexual disease and HIV infection in the gay community in general.
The lure of Viagra, which acts by increasing blood flow, may be especially attractive to some in the gay community because of the nature of homosexual sex.
“Some have suggested that anal intercourse requires a firmer erection than either oral sex or vaginal sex,” Klausner said.
Spokesman Daniel Watts said Pfizer opposed changing the labeling and said the firm had long engaged in a public education campaign, including in a Web site called sexualsmarts.org.
“We can only give so much education material. Ultimately the people have to decide the kind of behavior they are going to engage in that will minimize the risk,” he said. “It also comes down to taking personal responsibility for your own behavior.”