JERUSALEM (AFP) – It might harm their reputation, but Israel’s air force is considering giving its combat pilots Viagra to improve their performance — in the air.

A recent study conducted by Israeli doctors among mountain climbers in Africa found a link between erectile dysfunction drugs and improved performance in high altitudes, the mass-selling Yediot Aharonot reported on Thursday.

The active ingredient in the drugs was found to make climbers perform better in an environment with less oxygen, which causes fatigue and dizziness.

This has led army doctors to consider giving jet fighter pilots — who can fly at altitudes of up to 50,000 feet (15,000 metres) — the same drug, the report said.

“The Viagra family of drugs is considered effective in these conditions because when there is a long shortage in oxygen it leads to high blood pressure in the lungs, and the drugs help fight that,” the report quoted military medical sources as saying.

PARIS (Reuters) – French customs officials have intercepted a shipment of 224,000 fake Viagra and Cialis anti-impotence pills worth 2.4 million euros ($3.5 million), the Budget Ministry said Monday.

The copies of the bestselling drugs were found on December 18 during a search at the French capital’s main air hub at Roissy, in a freight cargo on its way to Brazil from India.

“Branded Powergra and Erectalis, each box contained, in fact, four tablets in the characteristic shape and color of Viagra or Cialis pills,” Budget Minister Eric Woerth’s office, which is also in charge of customs, said in a statement.

“The companies Pfizer and Eli Lilly, which respectively own the Viagra and Cialis brands, quickly confirmed the counterfeit nature of these products and the 224,000 pills were seized,” Woerth’s office added.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – A drug that could do for women what Viagra has done for men is being tested at the University of Virginia. The drug is a testosterone-laden ointment called LibiGel and it’s intended to boost the libido of women who have lost interest in sex. It will be prescribed at UVa in coming months to women who are suffering from hypoactive sexual desire disorder.

The condition is believed to affect one-third of American women.

“It is the most common sexual problem that women have,” said Dr. Anita Clayton, a psychiatrist with the UVa Health System and author of the 2007 book “Satisfaction: Women, Sex and the Quest for Intimacy.”

UVa joins 99 other medical institutions participating in testing the drug’s efficacy and safety.

If given the green light by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Illinois-based BioSante Pharmaceuticals Inc. hopes to offer the drug to any woman complaining of a low sex drive.

For now, though, Clayton will enroll 25 women between the ages of 30 and 65 to take part in the national study.

Those women must have had both ovaries surgically removed, be currently taking an estrogen supplement and be distressed about their lack of libido.

Ovariectomies, or surgical menopause, can lead to a drop in sexual interest because ovaries produce roughly half of the testosterone in a woman’s body.

Testosterone plays a key role in sexual functioning for men and women.

LibiGel comes in a pump bottle. The woman rubs the small dot of gel into the skin of her upper arm. Over the next 24 hours, the gel’s testosterone seeps into her bloodstream, boosting her energy and libido.

Clayton, who is running the clinical trial at UVa, said the drug is better than previous testosterone treatments because it keeps levels of the chemical constant, much like naturally occurring testosterone.

“I expect this will work,” she said.

In its second-phase clinical trials at 17 institutions, LibiGel led to a 283 percent increase of satisfying sexual encounters for the women taking the drug.

“A lot of women have this problem, but unfortunately they’ve been largely ignored by pharmaceutical companies,” said BioSante’s chief executive, Stephen M. Simes. “It’s not fair that women have no drugs, while men have many.”

WASHINGTON – Dietary supplements marketed to provide male sexual enhancement contain undeclared erectile dysfunction drugs putting users at risk, the Food and Drug Administration warned Friday.

The agency advised consumers to stay away from Shangai Chaojimengnan supplements sold under the names Super Shangai, Strong Testis, Shangai Ultra, Shangai Ultra X, Lady Shangai and Shangai Regular. The Chinese-made supplements are packaged and distributed by Shangai Distributor Inc. of Puerto Rico.

Product testing indicates that some of these so-called supplements contain Viagra’s active ingredient, sildenafil, or a compound with a chemical structure that mimics sildenafil.

These chemicals could interact with nitrates in drugs taken for disorders commonly associated with erectile dysfunction, including diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and heart disease. The result could dangerously lower a user’s blood pressure, according to the FDA.

The agency also warned that the safety and purity of these illegal ingredients is unknown.

BANGKOK (AFP) – Parliamentary candidates in Thailand’s upcoming election are trying to buy the votes of elderly men by passing out free Viagra, a local government official said Friday.

Thais head to the polls on December 23 for the first time since the military toppled the elected prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra in a bloodless coup last year.

Residents in Prathumthani, on the northern outskirts of Bangkok, reported some of the candidates were passing out doses of the anti-impotence drug in exchange for promised votes, said Sayan Nopkham, a local government official.

“The villagers told me they have been given one or two pills of Viagra by candidates. Then they come to me to ask for more pills, or sometimes coffee, in exchange for voting for my brother, who is also running for a seat,” he told AFP.

Thailand has a long history of vote-buying, but laws banning it have recently been toughened.

Anyone found guilty of buying votes could face up to 10 years in prison while voters who accept money face up to five years in jail.

Charungwit Phumma, an investigator with the Election Commission, said he had received no formal complaints about a Viagra-for-votes scheme.

“It’s a funny claim,” he said.

Charungwit said the most common complaints filed with his office were voters being paid to join a political party or being promised cash for going to the ballot box.

BANGKOK, Thailand – Vote-buying is an old practice in Thai politics, but one candidate for December’s Thai election has reportedly come up with a new tactic — handing out Viagra instead of cash.

The allegation, made Thursday by a campaign worker against a rival party, comes as rules about handing out favors to voters have become stricter than ever, barring even the distribution of free T-shirts and soft drinks.

Sayan Nopcha, a campaigner for the People’s Power Party in Pathum Thai province just north of Bangkok, said the drug used to treat sexual dysfunction in men was being distributed to elderly male voters at social functions.

Viagra is supposed to be used only on a doctor’s advice, but is generally available over the counter in Thailand.

“The politician is giving out Viagra to gain popularity and votes,” said Sayan, a local government official whose older brother is the PPP candidate. “I think this is a very bad way of vote-buying.”

He would not identify the candidate who allegedly handed out the pills.

Under a tough new law, both the supplier and recipient of vote-buying can face criminal charges. Candidates can be disqualified and their party disbanded, as was the case with the old law, while voters who accept money or gifts can now face from one to 10 years in prison.

More than 4,200 candidates from 41 parties are competing for 480 seats in the lower house of parliament in the Dec. 23 polls — the first to be held after a bloodless military coup ousted elected Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in September last year.

LONDON (AFP) – A member of an international crime ring which bought fake Viagra and drugs against baldness from factories in Asia before selling them on to unsuspecting customers at a huge profit has been jailed in Britain.

Ashish Halai was described by prosecutors as the British “lynchpin” of the operation, which bought bogus drugs for as little as 25 pence in China and Pakistan before they were sold online for up to 20 pounds per tablet.

Halai, 31, of Borehamwood, was jailed for four-and-a-half years at Kingston Crown Court after the largest investigation of its kind.

Sentencing him, Judge Nicholas Price said it was “an undeniably lucrative business where consumers are easy prey, often too embarrassed to seek help from their doctors”.

He noted that there was no evidence that the fake drugs had caused anyone any harm.

Halai, who was sentenced on four counts of selling fake medication, is one of four men who smuggled the drugs into Britain.

Gary Haywood, 58, of Leicester, Ashwin Patel, 24, of north London and Zahid Mirza, 45, of Ilford, Essex, were found guilty of involvement in the conspiracy in August and will be sentenced next month.

The court heard that the fake drugs involved were almost identical to the real products and contained around 90 percent of the active ingredient found in the genuine drugs.

British officials were alerted to the huge manufacturing and supply ring, which also had operations in the United States, the Bahamas and Mexico, following a chance seizure of thousands of tablets.

Investigators are still trying to work out how much money the men made from the ring.

BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese police have seized more than a tonne of fake drugs for impotence, bird flu and malaria, including at least 18,000 fake Viagra tablets, state media reported Wednesday.

The Ministry of Public Security, which launched the national crackdown on counterfeit goods in 2005, announced 10 of its top cases ranging from fake drugs to fake toothpaste Tuesday, the Xinhua news agency said on its Web site.

More than 30 people were detained on suspicion of either making or selling the drugs.

Police in the eastern province of Zhejiang raided a gang making counterfeit Viagra and selling the tablets to 12 countries, including the United States and Holland, it said, adding that a total of 18,000 pills were seized.

In Guangdong, police had arrested 12 people and seized 1 tonne of fake drugs and two production lines and large quantities of raw materials for making “sildenafil citrate,” the scientific name of Viagra.

Police detained 19 suspects and shut down six factories in May last year for making fake Tamiflu, a bird flu drug, and selling it to the United States via the Internet, the agency said.

In April last year, police cracked a ring making and selling pirated toothpaste across the country and arrested five suspects, it said.

Chinese media report on scandals involving substandard or fake drug and food almost every day, and the issue burst into the international spotlight when tainted additives exported from China contaminated pet food in North America.

Public fears about food safety grew in China in 2004 when at least 13 babies died of malnutrition after they were fed fake mild power with no nutritional value.

SYDNEY (AFP) – An Australian oyster farmer has hit upon a technique he believes has created the ultimate aphrodisiac — feeding his shellfish the drug Viagra.

George May said the natural qualities of the oyster, known for arousing sexual desire, combined with the best modern pharmaceutical equivalent to create a potentially multi-million dollar market.

“First of all, oysters are the greatest natural aphrodisiac, second, you lace it with Viagra, and third, it’s a laugh,” the 59-year-old told AFP on Monday.

May, who was a successful Sydney marketing executive until being diagnosed with prostate cancer late in 2006, will not be allowed to sell his oysters in Australia because they contravene strict regulations.

And he has been ordered by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which produces the anti-impotence drug Viagra, to stop using the name of their most famous product in his marketing.

But May says neither of these obstacles will stop him from exporting his specially prepared Sydney Rock Oysters around the world.

“No-one can stop me feeding Viagra to my oysters. The reason that Pfizer are jumping up and down is that I used the name Viagra,” he said.

“I’m getting calls from Macau, Hong Kong, Moscow for god’s sake. I’m getting calls from all over the bloody world.”

May, a self-described “marketing genius” from Scotland, said the idea came to him after he started “hanging around with the boys” in the small fishing village north of Sydney he retired to following prostate surgery last December.

His doctor had prescribed a small daily dose of Viagra to help his recovery and it occurred to him he should be feeding the drug to oysters to help the local farmers, many of whom had struggled after a disease swept through their crops.

May said he told them: “I’m going to feed them Viagra and zinc and every other aphrodisiac I can find.”

He has since patented the idea of feeding the oysters Viagra, magnesium, zinc and sea grass among other things after the shellfish have gone through the normal purification process.

“They are all being really well looked after because they are in beautiful filtered water and we’re actually feeding them vitamins and minerals,” May said. “We’re getting a bigger oyster.”

May now has some 10 million oysters in cultivation and says he eats one to two dozen each day without any ill effects of consuming a foodstuff containing some medication. “I swear to god. They work,” he said.

A spokesman for Pfizer said the drug company was concerned about the use of their brand name. “It’s a very ordinary trademark issue,” he said.

TUESDAY, May 22 (HealthDay News) — Worried about jet lag? Researchers think they might have just the ticket to perk you up: Viagra.

While it’s too early to know if it will work in humans, Argentinean researchers are reporting that the drug sildenafil — better known by the brand name Viagra — appears to reduce symptoms of jet lag in hamsters.

Viagra does come with potential side effects, and some men might not appreciate experiencing a temporary respite from erectile dysfunction at 30,000 feet. Still, a sleep specialist called the research promising.

“We do need more effective therapies for jet lag and for sleep difficulties that occur as a consequence of shift work,” said Dr. Robert Vorona, an associate professor at Eastern Virginia Medical School who’s familiar with the study findings.

In the study, researchers administered small doses of sildenafil to hamsters before adjusting the cycles of light and dark they lived in. This reset their body clocks as if they’d taken a six-hour plane trip to the east.

The hamsters recovered 25 percent to 50 percent more quickly from the equivalent of human jet lag, needing less time to synchronize themselves to the new schedule, said Dr. Diego Golombek, a researcher with the Universidad Nacional de Quilmes in Buenos Aires. He said sildenafil worked at least as well as melatonin, a jet-lag treatment.

But the drug didn’t help hamsters who underwent a simulation of westward jet travel.

The findings were published in this week’s Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences.

The drug, originally developed to treat high blood pressure and angina, might alleviate jet lag by interfering with a molecule that sends signals to the hamster brain’s body clock mechanism, Golombek said.

But the potential impact on humans isn’t clear, and Golombek said people shouldn’t rush out to prevent jet lag with doses of Viagra. For one thing, Viagra can cause side effects such as low blood pressure.

As for the next step, Golombek said “a full-scale clinical trial has to be performed in humans, which is indeed quite expensive and time-consuming. Jet-lag trials might involve laboratory simulations, but we also need ‘the real thing,’ which means testing pharmacological treatments on long-haul air travel.”

And that, he added, will take even more time.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The male impotence drug Viagra may be useful for treating jet lag as well, according to Argentine researchers who gave it to hamsters made to feel like rodent globe-trotters.

The researchers manipulated the schedule of turning lights on and off to induce jet lag in the laboratory animals, they reported Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Adult male hamsters given Viagra, also called sildenafil, recovered from jet lag up to 50 percent faster than hamsters that were not given it, the researchers said.

The scientists stopped giving the hamsters the highest dose they had been using in the experiment due to a certain side effect.

“However, we used the intermediate dose for the rest of the experiments because at that dose animals did not manifest the effects of sildenafil-induced penile erections,” they wrote.

Flying across multiple time zones can confuse one’s sleep-wake cycle, resulting in the condition called jet lag, marked by insomnia, sleepiness and difficulty concentrating.

Researchers Patricia Agostino, Santiago Plano and Diego Golombek of the Universidad Nacional de Quilmes in Buenos Aires gave doses of Viagra to the hamsters at night, then switched on bright lights six hours early to simulate eastbound flight.

They judged how well the hamsters adjusted to the changes by observing when they began running on exercise wheels.

The drug helped the rodents cope with jet lag only when given before the equivalent of an eastbound flight, not the reverse when they delayed turning on lights to simulate westbound travel, the study found.

The researchers said the findings suggested that Viagra could be useful to help people cope with jet lag or shift work. They said the dose needed for such uses could be lower than the one used for treatment of erectile dysfunction.

Viagra interferes with an enzyme that lowers levels of a naturally occurring compound that plays a role in the regulation of the circadian cycle, the body’s internal clock, the researchers said.

Viagra is marketed by Pfizer, the world’s largest drug maker. The U.S.
Food and Drug Administration approved it to treat erectile dysfunction in 1998

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) – Malaysia’s answer to Viagra is a traditional herb the country has picked to spearhead its push into biotechnology, but now it faces the challenge of convincing the world the remedy is both potent and safe.

Surging interest in the herb, “tongkat ali,” has spawned dozens of products, from pills to beverages, that play up its reputed aphrodisiac properties, and could even threaten the sway overseas of ginseng, a more-widely established remedy in Asia.

Generations of aging Malaysian men have sworn by the rejuvenation effects of “tongkat ali,” scouring the countryside for it so eagerly that it has almost vanished from all but the deepest rainforest, and now has the status of a protected plant.

Scientific studies show that concoctions of “tongkat ali” can help hormone production, making rats and mice more frisky, but have yet to prove it can reliably produce the same effect in humans, researchers say.

“It can have different effects on different people,” said Abdul Razak, head of the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia, which is driving research and commercial production of the herb.

“For me, it gives the energy to play a game of golf without getting tired, but has no other effects,” said Razak, who takes two capsule supplements of the herb before each weekly game to increase his stamina.

“Tongkat ali,” which scientists call Eurycoma longifolia, is a slender evergreen shrub with bitter, brownish-red fruit that is native to Malaysia and Indonesia.

All parts of the plant which grows up to 10 meters (33 ft) tall can be chopped up fine and boiled in water to make the traditional medicine.

As Malaysia looks to biotechnology for economic growth, scientists are taking a harder look at the aphrodisiac qualities of tongkat ali, which means the “walking-stick of Ali,” in Malay, and they say it could spawn drugs to treat cancer and malaria.

PREPARING FOR COMMERCIAL USE

Five years of research studies in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States have helped to identify the key compounds in the herb, Razak said.

“All these compounds have been found, have been tested and have been patented, and we are now in the process of carrying out clinical studies, and hopefully after some time we might even commercialize this,” he added.

A Malaysian industry and government group says the rapidly growing global market for aphrodisiacs is worth about $4 billion and could reach nearly $7 billion by 2012, but plans for “tongkat ali” to grab a share of this pie hinge on proving it is safe.

In Taiwan this year, Taipei city officials banned six brands of coffee from supermarkets because they contained “tongkat ali,” saying the plant had not been evaluated for safe use, although there were no confirmed reports of side-effects, newspapers said.

The episode in January stirred indignation in Malaysia, where some officials publicly defended the herb, saying its safety and efficacy had been demonstrated by hundreds of years of use.

Others said the incident showed how far Malaysia still has to go to prove its claims for the herb.

“We’ve still got a lot of homework to do as a nation,” said M. Rajen, chief executive of Tropical Botanics Sdn Bhd, which counts among its products Malaysia’s most popular fish-oil brand.

Makers of ginseng, which has a global market of about $2 billion a year, according to some industry estimates, would be ruthless in battling competition from “tongkat ali,” he said.

“What we see in Taiwan and elsewhere is an example of this ruthlessness,” Rajen added. “Because we have not done our homework, we cannot fight it.”

But Malaysia is confident it will convince the world. Officials of Power Root Malaysia Sdn Bhd, which exports tea and coffee drinks containing the herb to Japan and South Korea, have said they are looking to the United States and the Middle East.

“One day ‘tongkat ali’ will be marketed internationally, even in Harrods of London,” Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak said in January, at the launch of a $7 million biotech research center that will study ways to clone the herb.

At the Forest Research Institute, workers in white protective gear poured sacks of the herb into gleaming stainless steel dryers and grinders to turn out powder for capsules.

“It’s high time for ‘tongkat ali’ now,” said researcher Mohamad Shahidan, grinning through his face mask. “Everybody wants to try it.”

LONDON (Reuters) – Men will be able to buy impotence treatment Viagra over the counter in Britain for the first time from Valentine’s Day, chemist chain Alliance Boots said on Sunday.

Three Manchester Boots pharmacies will sell the prescription-only medication made by U.S. drugs group Pfizer in a pilot program from February 14.

Men aged between 30 and 65 suffering from erectile dysfunction will be able to buy four Viagra pills for 50 pounds ($97) without having to get a prescription from a doctor first.

Instead, they will have a private consultation with a Boots pharmacist, when their medical history will be checked and measurements taken of their blood pressure, cholesterol and blood glucose levels.

On a return visit patients will see a private doctor to ensure they are suitable for a further supply of pills.

“By creating a service that is easily accessible on the high street we hope that we help many more men seek help for a very common condition,” said Boots Director of Healthcare Alex Gourlay.

He said it was estimated that only one in 10 men suffering from erectile dysfunction were currently being treated.

Boots already offers similar services for weight loss, hair retention and chlamydia treatment.

A national roll out of the Viagra service will be assessed later in the year.

BRASILIA, Brazil (Reuters) – The mayor of a small Brazilian town has begun handing out free Viagra, spicing up the sex lives of dozens of elderly men and their partners.

“Since we started the free distribution of sexual stimulants, our elderly population changed. They’re much happier,” said Joao de Souza Luz, the mayor of Novo Santo Antonio, a small town in the central state of Mato Grosso.

Souza Luz said 68 men over the age of 60 had already signed up for the program, which was approved by the town’s legislature and has been dubbed “Happy Penis,” or “Pinto Alegre” in Portuguese.

But the program has also had the unforeseen consequence of encouraging some extra-marital affairs, Souza Luz said.

“Some of the old men aren’t seeking out their wives. They’ve got romances on the side,” he said.

To discourage such illicit canoodling, Souza Luz said the city had decided to begin distributing the Viagra pills to the wives of the men who signed up for the program.

“That way, when the women are in the mood, they can give the pills to their husbands,” he said.

LAGOS (AFP) – Viagra may heat up one’s sex drive, but chocolate can make it sizzle.

So said Dr. Dora Akunyili, the director of Nigeria’s Federal Agency for Food and Medicine, in advising Nigerians on Monday to forego the little, libido-boosting blue pills in favor of a measured dose of cocoa.

To back up her claims — made during a meeting with the vice-governor of one of Nigeria’s states — the good doctor cited a recently published study extolling the libidinal qualities of cocoa beans.

The report, produced by Nigeria’s national committee for the development of cocoa, may be a bit skimpy on double-blind scientific tests, but it does refer to the marketing campaign of a British trade association making similar claims.

Baptized “Feeding Your Imagination”, the campaign will soon launch a product line of six energy chocolate bars containing essential oils said to enhance one’s mood, and especially one’s sexual appetite.

Costing about six US dollars (5 euros) per 100 grams, the bars are fetchingly named Sexy, Beautiful, Dreamy, Fantastic, Sensual and Lovely, according to the website foodnavigator.com.

Britons already lead the European Union in chocolate consumption, eating nearly 10 kilos on average per year, and Britian is thus considered a promising market for sex candy.

For Akunyili, chocolate is the obvious lover’s choice. Viagra, she said, can have unwelcome side effects, but chocolate is all good: it is the best anti-oxidant known and — beyond its sexual virtues — can help prevent heart attacks, hypertension and diabetes.

The vice governor, who also happens to head a committee for the promotion of chocolate, is even more enthusiastic about cocoa’s curative powers, claiming it can “cure breast cancer, get rid of chronic coughs, and enhance brain power”.

Akunyili did caution, however, that any new products containing chocolate will be thoroughly tested before going to market.

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil (Reuters) – Police have arrested a man on suspicion of stealing anti-impotence drugs from dozens of pharmacies in the past year and were seeking his accomplice in what they are calling the “Viagra gang.”

“One was arrested and we know the other one’s identity and are looking for him,” a Rio de Janeiro police spokesman said on Wednesday.

The men are suspected of holding up more than 35 pharmacies in the same drugstore chain. Police said they stole anti-impotence drugs such as Viagra as well as money from registers. The chain estimated its losses at some $220,000.

Police said the partners sold the drugs on the black market and were so successful that they drew criticism from an unlikely source — the criminal underworld.

Taped phone conversations show members of a powerful drug gang from the same slum where the two lived complaining that their illicit business was drawing too much police attention to the shantytown near Rio’s famed Copacabana Beach.