Medicare illegally spent over $3 million on Viagra

The American company Medicare have reportedly spent three million dollars illegally on Viagra for the elderly and disabled it emerged yesterday.

Administrators have blamed the payouts in 2007 and 2008 on a computer software error and vowed to try to recover the money for private insurers. The spending breached a 2005 ban on erectile dysfunction drugs under the government health program.

In his report, George Reeb, acting deputy inspector general for audit services at the Department of Health, said Medicare 'should not have covered these drugs.' It paid out more than $3 million alone for Viagra tablets which had $1.9 billion sales in 2010, according to Bloomberg.

Medicare also paid an unknown amount for impotence drugs in 2009 and 2010, said the report.

Viagra

The payouts  were a fraction of Medicare's spending on drugs over the two-year period which came to $133 billion. Medicare’s administrators told the inspector general they would fix the mistake by updating computer databases with codes for the banned drugs.

Fake Viagra overdose call ends with charges

A US resident from Florida has been charged after a caller used vulgar language to tell a 911 operator he had overdosed on Fake illegal Viagra.

The call was made shortly after midnight on Jan. 16 from a home in Oakland Park, a suburb of Fort Lauderdale. A man told the 911 operator he needed medical attention because he had taken too many Viagra pills, which are used to help men with erectile dysfunction. The man “used vulgar language and described in explicit detail to the dispatcher the effect the pills were having on him. He even explained how his wife was performing oral sex on him to help alleviate the pain,” police said in a release Friday.

Paramedics responded to the address the caller had provided, but when they arrived, were told no one at the home had called 911 for help. Police went to the home in February and the homeowner identified the voice as belonging to his daughter’s ex-boyfriend. Police have charged Matthew Wade Douglas Jr. with misuse of the 911 system.

How Gum Disease Can Lead To Male Impotence

Once in the bloodstream, this plaque-causing bacteria can attach itself to the walls of the arteries or existing plaque in the arteries and lead to coronary artery disease.  When blood flow is constricted, due to plaque build up in the arteries, the heart must pump harder to move blood through these arteries and blood vessels.

In the same study that tracked men with periodontal disease,  2.1% of respondents without Male Impotence had advanced periodontal disease, 9.8% of the subjects had mild Male Impotence and the same advanced periodontal disease. The most recent  number was 15.8%, and it was representing the percent of persons with moderate or severe Male Impotence and advanced periodontal disease.

This study demonstrates the human mouth is full of bacteria, and people who do not brush their teeth regularly, or visit their dentist to remove plaque tend to have higher levels of bacteria  and are more likely to have bleeding,swollen gums and gingivitis, which can lead to periodontal disease. 

These openings in the gum line or on the gums are a perfect host to allow dangerous bacteria to enter the bloodstream and potentially cause serious health problems, such as heart disease or Male Impotence.

Dutch Chemist Jailed Over Fake Cialis Lab

A chemist from Fulham who hoped to flood the UK with homemade illegal erectile dysfunction medication has been jailed for 40 months.

Chistiaan Winkel aged 32 left his job at University College London to make fake Cialis tablets. The Old Bailey heard the Dutchman set up a laboratory in an east London flat where he also planned to make the banned drug ecstasy.

He admitted conspiracy to defraud Lilly UK and conspiracy to manufacture ecstasy. Winkel imported a pill-making machine and precursor chemicals from China, producing samples to show a "potential dealer".

However the dealer proved to be an undercover police officer who had got involved after Winkel unwittingly made contact with investigators on a website. He offered them pills for male impotence.

The judge, Recorder Douglas Day, QC, told him: "You are a highly-intelligent man with great talent.”It is a tragedy to find you here." Det Insp Doug Blackwood, from City of London Police, said after the trial: "The millionaire lifestyle he hoped this crime would fund must now seem a very long way away."

Winkel's runner Safa Ba Seidi aged 36, of Tottenham, north London, admitted conspiracy to defraud and conspiracy to supply ecstasy. He was jailed for 21 months.

When police searched his home they found legitimate substances used in Winkel's chemical import business, along with illegal ecstasy ingredients. Winkel's girlfriend, Yuly Sandoval Mora aged 33, of Holloway, north London, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud. She was given an eight-month suspended sentence.

Mick Deats, of the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHPRA), said: "This is a rare case of counterfeit medicines being manufactured in the UK. "We generally find that counterfeit medicines found in this country have originated from the Far East."

Has erectile dysfunction medication helped to save the Rhinoceros and other endangered species?

As an upright environmentalist kind of guy, I was wondering if the rising popularity of erectile dysfunction drugs like Viagra, Cialis, Levitra, etc, has caused a corresponding subsidence in the demand for powdered rhinoceros horn and other aphrodisiacs made from the body parts of endangered animals.

Predictions about the benefit of Viagra on rhinos and other endangered species have arisen for around 13 years.  Whilst there are people who believe that rhino horn will help to restore virility, it is mainly limited to groups in India, Thailand, and Laos.

Rhino horn has actually been a major substance within Traditional Chinese Medicine for centuries, and there are those who have credited rhino horn with the potency to cure an unusually wide array of maladies, from headaches to pus-filled boils--and even devil possession. However, a study carried out by the WWF (World Wildlife Fund), published the results of a pharmalogical study conducted by researchers at Hoffmann-LaRoche in The Environmentalist.

The study "found no evidence that rhino horn has any medicinal effect as an antipyretic and would be ineffective in reducing fever, a common usage in much of Asia." The use has even been compared to chewing one’s finger nails in terms of health benefits. Whilst TCM is a major cause for the use of rhino horn, it is also used for dagger horns and as cups for wine.

Frank and William von Hippel in a 1998 letter to Science, Frank, a biologist, conjectured that Viagra could eliminate demand for "animal potency products": "After all," he wrote, "the cost of Viagra is trivial compared to that of rhino horn." In a 2002 follow up, he and his psychologist sibling published a table listing nine types of threatened critter "collected for TCM treatments for ED." The fine print clarified that two of the nine, namely rhinos and tigers, in fact weren't collected for this purpose. Westerners-apparently including, as of 1998, Frank von Hippel-just thought they were.

Therefore, TCM does acknowledge some aphrodisiacs. They've been derived from sea cucumbers, pipefishes, seahorses, geckos, deer, and pinnipeds. Most of the trade in endangered species has been banned. However, indications may be gleaned from the few cases where such dealing remains legal. According to the von Hippels, sales of one TCM aphrodisiac, antler velvet from Alaskan reindeer, dropped sharply following Viagra's introduction, and the market for seals, prized for their genitalia, collapsed a little later. Critics questioned how much of this was due to competition from ED drugs, but in a 2005 survey underwritten by Pfizer, maker of Viagra, the brothers found Hong Kong men were abandoning TCM impotence treatments.

The rhino population has now improved, after it was previously in decline for 20 years. Conservation efforts, not pharmaceuticals, have made the difference. With the increasing interest in TCM, poaching pressure remains intense.

Asians are still using rhino horn to combat fever. TCM practitioners are adamant of the benefits of rhino horn. One scientific study of the substance claimed it was actually effective in reducing fever, but only at extremely high doses. However, demand for rhino horn are thought to be with the upper class, wealthy Asian population, and not the majority as rhino horn is quite expensive in comparison to other alternatives.

Fake viagra seized in Longbridge raid

Thousands of Viagra tablets of what were thought to be fake were found in a raid on a house in Birmingham.
Police swooped on a house in Rednal Mill Lane, Longbridge, in conjunction with the Medicines & Healthcare Product Regulatory Agency (MHPRA) at 7.30am 28 Feb 2011

Officers from Longbridge, who executed the warrant, said they found up to 20,000 tablets, which could have been sold illegally. The investigation is being led by experts from the MHPRA, who will decide whether to mount a prosecution. 

Details of the operation were revealed on social networking site Twitter. An officer wrote: “Officers in Longbridge have carried out a warrant with partners from the Medicines & Healthcare Product Regulatory Agency. “During the warrant around 15 to 20,000 tablets of a Viagra substitute, set to be sold illegally, were recovered from a residential address.”

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Fake Viagra caught being smuggle into Coventry postal hub

A BID to smuggle more than two million fake or unlicensed Viagra tablets through Coventry's international postal hub flopped, figures released this week revealed. The haul of 2.1 million tablets was uncovered by UK Border Agency officials at Royal Mail's hub in Baginton. The Viagra had been ordered online by British customers.

Officials seized a total of 8.5 million fake or unlicensed tablets of the erectile dysfunction drug during 2010, with six million alone discovered at Heathrow Airport. A further 116,000 tablets were seized at Birmingham Airport. The total haul had a value of around £13 million.

Brodie Clark, UK Border Agency's head of border force, said fake Viagra was often made in laboratories in the Far East, and could contain harmful ingredients. He added genuine but unlicensed tablets were often imported from India. He said while the Viagra was genuine, its unlicensed status meant it had not gone through the rigorous tests required under UK law.

"This massive haul makes it clear just how seriously we take the smuggling of fake and unlicensed medicines," Mr Clark said. "As well as stopping drugs, weapons and illegal immigrants from reaching the UK, our officers have a vital role to play in protecting British consumers and businesses from the trade in black market medicines and other goods.”Smugglers are only out to make a profit," he added. "These goods are often dangerous and the proceeds can be used to fuel serious organised crime."

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