Is it possible that Viagra causes death?

‘Don’t worry. It is only going to be a routine prescription.’ Lesley Wilson assured her patient.
The eighty-year old retired airline executive had been initially reluctant to discuss his main reason for coming to see Lesley in her office. But sensing that his mission would soon be futile if Lesley, an internal medicine physician, leaves the office – as she had apparently packed her things to close for the day – he had summoned up courage and talked to the physician about his erectile problem.

Lesley, apparently used to the awkward situation her male patients found themselves anytime they wanted to discuss such intimate issues with her, nodded in understanding. In an apparent attempt to take the sting out of the situation, Lesley had assured her patient. After taking the results of the medical check-up into consideration, and asking the man if he was using nitroglycerin, a heart treatment drug that is known to react with Viagra to fatally lower the blood pressure, Lesley had adjudged the retired executive fit enough for a prescription. Lesley offered the eighty-year-old man a bottle containing six blue tablets of Viagra, something she had explained to be a routine prescription.

Two days later, Leslie got the shocking news that the retired airline executive had lost his life while having sex with his wife the previous day.

This is one of a number of factual fatalities that have been reported among some people who ordered Viagra tablets to help boost their sexual functions.
This is especially worrying when one considers the growing number of internet sites that offer Viagra tablets online to those people who want to buy Viagra without prescription.

Not only is this practice of self-medication dangerous in itself – if this trend is not bucked – the cases of the inherent dangers from buying fake products (the internet is the number one source of obtaining fake Viagra tablets) could attain alarming heights.

In just less than a year of becoming available in the UK, there have been about thirty-one fatalities among people that have made Viagra tablets order.

Apart from these people losing their lives within hours of taking Viagra tablets, though, these deaths could not be pinned directly to Viagra. In addition, the potentially fatal interactions of Viagra tablets with other drugs such as nitrates-containing medications, alpha blockers – drugs used for hypertension, benign hyperplasia, etc – have been well documented.

The side effects of Viagra, according to The Medicines Control Agency, had been well established even before the drug was officially launched.

Thus, any action contrary to the message conveyed in Viagra’s label that expressly warns about the drugs contraindicated for Viagra tablets could trigger life-threatening reactions.

Given the vast amount of patients who buy Viagra tablets online without prescription, and those who have serious underlying physical conditions that predispose to their erectile conditions, the number of fatalities that could trigger cardiovascular events would not have been unexpected.

Andy Burrowes, a marketing manager of Pfizer Inc., the exclusive maker of Viagra, denied the claim that Viagra tablets could be such a high risk medication. ‘This is highly unfounded,’ Burrowes was quoted as saying.

‘We are not oblivious of the fact that Viagra could have some rare severe side effects. We have, however, mandated every doctor to report any incidents of adverse reactions that could be directly or indirectly linked with Viagra. The death of these people, much as it is painful, could have possibly been a consequence of other factors that might have had nothing to do with Viagra.’ Burrowes was quoted to have added.

Viagra was originally formulated as a treatment for angina pectoris and hypertension.