First Web Viagra doctor ready to deal with flak

By MICHAEL FOREMAN and SCOTT MacLEOD

An Auckland-based doctor plans to dispense up to 1000 Viagra tablets a week over the Internet.

Dr Chris Simpson, who runs the Men's Health Clinic in Remuera, claims he is the first doctor in New Zealand to openly dispense the male impotence drug on the Net.

The tablets sell for $19 to $23 each.

A qualified pharmacist, Dr Simpson is able to prescribe and dispense prescription drugs legally. While at least one other online pharmacy is using unnamed doctors to sign Viagra prescriptions, Dr Simpson said he had decided to come out into the open to help to bring the subject "out of the gutter."

He said he was aware that his Website, which also offers the weight-loss drug Xenical and condoms and lubricants, would arouse controversy.

"I'm expecting some flak but I'm ready to deal with it."

Internet medicine and prescribing drugs via the Net have aroused considerable controversy because of the lack of face-to-face contact with a health professional.

But Dr Simpson said the Internet provided an ideal means of making Viagra available to patients too embarrassed to visit their doctor.

"Of course, the optimum is the face-to-face consultation - it cannot be beaten. But some patients just don't want it."

He said many men were terrified to admit they were suffering from erectile problems.

While Dr Simpson admitted the Website could make it easier for recreational or non-approved users, including women, to obtain the drug, he thought this was unlikely.

"We're starting to get a few women ringing up asking on behalf of their partners, but prescribing Viagra for women is not approved."

Dr Simpson said that the Website's warnings, which listed conditions and other drugs which made it inadvisable to take Viagra, were not only adequate but "infinitely superior" to the quality of advice given out by some GPs.

An Australian researcher has meanwhile added his voice to concerns about the advertising of drugs to the general public in New Zealand, claiming that "disease mongering" ads for Viagra are risking lives.

The latest issue of the medical newsletter Healthy Scepticism New Zealand says newspaper ads for Viagra exaggerate its effectiveness and downplay risks.

The claim comes after a three-month study by a group representing drug companies found "considerable health benefits" in direct advertising.

The Healthy Scepticism article was written by Dr Peter Mansfield and overseas colleagues and published by the Medical Lobby for Appropriate Marketing. The newsletter is sent to all GPs and trainee doctors here.

Dr Mansfield told the Herald that New Zealand had the world's most relaxed laws for advertising drugs. A Viagra ad that ran in women's magazines under the headline "Don't turn your back on relationships" was designed to scare men into thinking they had to take the drug to save their relationships.

But the Researched Medicines Industry, which represents most drug firms serving New Zealand, has released a study that found the public benefited from direct marketing.

General manager Terrence Aschoff said the benefits included urging people to seek treatment, boosting the efficiency of health-care spending and improving patient compliance with prescribed drugs.