Can Viagra make you deaf? This item from Newser also gets our award for lede of the day:
Could Viagra make you, ahem, hard of hearing? Researchers are uncovering evidence that it and other anti-impotence drugs may do just that. The FDA has been warning about possible hearing complications associated with anti-impotence medicine since 2007, but two new reports are raising concerns. UK researchers who surveyed drug watchdogs around the world uncovered 47 cases of sudden hearing loss linked to Viagra and related drugs. Another 223 possible reports from the United States had to be excluded because of lack of details, reports the Daily Mail.
Meanwhile, Reuters reports that a new US study finds that taking Viagra could double one’s chance of experiencing hearing loss.
Will this cause men to stop using Viagra? I suspect many of them will want to stick it out for a while.
But if there are a rash of reports of women signing to their lovers “Get me a cigarette” you’ll know why.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.