Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

Viagra is a blood-circulation drug (the first in its drug class as a PDE5 inhibitor) prescribed to treat erectile dysfunction. This drug, marketed by Pfizer Pharmaceuticals and approved by the FDA in 1998, has been widely cited for its record-breaking sales and its “blockbuster” status. Specifically, Viagra set records as the fastest-selling drug in America, and netted over a billion dollars in its first year. Viagra was the first FDA-approved oral therapy for sexual dysfunction. After five years of consistent sales, competitors Levitra and Cialis (also PDE5 inhibitors) have entered the market, claiming to work faster and for longer periods of time. The financial success of Viagra has helped to construct and finance research and product development in sexual medicine. Sociologists have treated the Viagra phenomenon as an opportunity to analyze the social construction of medicine, masculinity, sexuality, marketing, and aging. Viagra, when read as a social artifact of our times, is emblematic of changing social realities in the twenty-first century. In sum, Viagra exemplifies the medicalization of social problems at a time when biomedicine is hegemonic, with increasing jurisdiction over areas of life not previously medicalized. Viagra reflects the emergence of the pharmaceutical era, in which the increasingly consolidated pharmaceutical industry is the most profitable industry in ... log in or subscribe to read full text