THERE'S NO NEED TO SEE A DOCTOR BEFORE A TRIP TO VIAGRA FALLS

WASHINGTON -- The other wonder associated with Viagra is the ease and
prodigality with which this favorite new recreational drug is dispensed in
the United States.

It took only two hours for a visiting journalist to gd the potent blue
pills recently in Washington without pulling strings, begging friends or
turning to the black market.

The episode seemed to encapsulate a U.S. trend for new prescription drugs
to overwhelm the old safeguards as they flood into commerce, especially
medications that go beyond affording specific cures and promise feel-good
benefits. In this case, the journalist's American colleagues were at a loss
when asked about shortcuts for getting Viagra in time for his flight later
that day to France, where the drug is not yet available. U.S. pharmacists
refuse to sell drugs without a prescription, and a doctor's appointment can
be hard to get for anyone without a local physician.

There was no alternative but the unpromising approach of ringing up friends
for their doctors' names and numbers.

The first number elicited a discouraging nasal burst: "Doctor's office.
What is the nature of your call?"

"Er, I'm not a regular patient, actually, more a visitor with a private, I
mean urgent, problem. The doctor, somehow, could he, I wonder, maybe,
possibly fit me in, you know, as a kind of emergency."

"You'll have to speak to the doctor. What's your daytime number?"

Hopeless, the reporter thought, hanging up. But then the phone rang.

A bedside voice announced: "Dr. Livermore" (not his real name).

No time for beating around the bush, thought the reporter, blurting out the
key words: "travel" and "Viagra." Instead of a brush-off, a question came
from the doctor.

"Are you over 60?"

"No." Was he being carded for Viagra? the reporter wondered.

"Are you being treated for a heart condition?"

"No."

"You don't need to see me," the doctor was saying. "We have a form at the
receptionist's desk, just come in and fill it out."

We're in business?

Business as usual apparently, as Dr. Livermore moved on smoothly. "How many
do you want?"

That was a matter that the reporter had somehow expected the doctor to
decide. Who knew how many pills people got? Enough for a night? For a
courtship?

"They're $10 a pop," the doctor said.

"Uh, I guess 10."

If he was disappointed by the modest order, Dr. Livermore did not show it.
"Well, your prescription will be renewable," he concluded cheerfully.

At the doctor's office, a nurse held out a small envelope.

"Here's your prescription," she said. Trying not to look incredulous, the
reporter hastily stowed away the envelope without opening it and asked,
"How much do I owe?"

"Nothing, you didn't see the doctor,"

Including local taxes, the vial of 10 Viagra pills cost $93.13.- It had
taken scarcely two hours (and two taxi rides) to get them.

When asked if they were the source of this still little-reported liberalism
about Viagra, executives at Pfizer, the manufacturer, said that the company
frowned on the idea of doctors prescribing the drug without examining
patients. Several doctors also disapproved of Dr. Livermore's methods.

But one physician said he agreed with Dr. Livermore's liberal approach to
dispensing Viagra. Many men, he said, are intimidated by the thought of
asking their regular doctor for Viagra so they resort to the Internet or to
some other anonymous nonmedical source.

"It's better for people to at least speak to a doctor and show their faces
to my nurse, so I make it easy for anyone who calls me and says the
V-word," the doctor said.

Perhaps globalization will make the marketplace less straitlaced about
medication. If so, on to Viagra Falls. Take heart, all of you in countries
that have not yet authorized the remedy, including the French spa chef who
got into hot water last month for having served sauce spiked with imported
Viagra to consenting customers.

France, apparently fearful of being swamped by illegal imports, has
announced that it, along with the rest of the European Union nations, will
legalize Viagra sales next month. By prescription only, of course.

International Herald Tribune.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski