Hidden Dangers Posed By Herbal Sex Pills
Over 70% of the pharmaceutical drugs produced in the last 5 years came from plants. Among plants we find herbs which are without doubt, nature’s drugs. Yet many use them in a cavalier manner. It seems they think that because herbs are not under prescription that the dosage and frequency of use does not matter. Nothing could be further from the truth.
” Many of the pills marketed as safe herbal alternatives to Viagra and other prescription sex medications pose a hidden danger: For men on common heart and blood-pressure drugs, popping one could lead to a stroke, or even death. … At greatest risk are the estimated 5.5 million American men who take nitrates — generally older and more likely to need help with erectile dysfunction.”
I’m sure you will not be surprised to hear that sales of “natural sexual enhancers” are on the rise reaching nearly $400 million last year and that dangerous knockoffs abound. The all-natural message can be appealing to men, warned by their doctors not to take Viagra, Cialis or Levitra. And, one can understand their attraction to “all-natural” products with names like Stamina-RX and Vigor-25, however, what’s being missed is that the reason many work is because they contain unregulated versions of the very pharmaceuticals they are supposed to replace. -> Read more
Nov 13th, 2007 at 12:32 am
It’s not just the health risks these so-called sex enhancers pose, what are they doing to our attitudes toward sex itself? I think you’d be interested in listening to what Leonore Tiefer has to say about it. I heard her on an Ideas postcast last week.
From the cbc.ca blurb:
Feminist, sexologist, psychologist, Leonore Tiefer has spent most of her life thinking and writing about sex – from the gender wars of the 1970s to twenty-first century Viagra. IDEAS producer Mary O’Connell talks to Leonore Tiefer about sexuality.
Scroll down a bit and you’ll find it:
http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/podcast.html
Nov 13th, 2007 at 10:57 am
Hi there,
Interestingly enough, I listened to the CBC Ideas broadcast. I’m a CBC junkie.
Nov 14th, 2007 at 2:01 am
I not only liked what she had to say, I loved how she said it in that drawn-out New York accent. Could listen to it all day..
Nov 14th, 2007 at 6:38 pm
I have been reading her stuff and she is one savvy woman for sure. I also found her accent intriguing.
“We are being manipulated by the pharmaceutical industry. The we in this case includes the general public, doctors, researchers, consumer advocacy groups, federal health officials, and politicians. The pharmaceutical industry exerts its influence over virtually all aspects of the medical care system. It sets a lion’s share of the research agenda; has a strong say in the ever-changing definitions of normal; controls most of the average doctor’s postgraduate pharmacological education; and is changing the way we think about illness in order to sell more drugs. Just to name a few.
More often the pharmaceutical industry has a hand in broadening the definition of illness so that more and more people can be funneled into long-term drug therapy.”