Entries from July 2007 ↓

A leading Israeli rabbi has ruled that the anti-impotency pill Viagra can be taken by Jews on Passover, reversing a previous ban.

Viagra had been deemed not kosher since 1998 under strict dietary laws over the week-long Jewish spring holiday.

Rabbi Mordechai Eliahu said the pill can be swallowed if it is encased in a special soluble kosher capsule first.

Viagra's Israeli manufacturers said they sought an answer after receiving queries from worried religious men.

Forbidden foods

The drug was previously prohibited because its coating was considered inedible over Passover, when contact with everyday ingredients, known as hametz, is forbidden under Jewish law.

In particular, Jews must dispose of any foodstuffs containing leavening agents, such as bread, cake or biscuits, or anything which might have come into contact with them in the production process.

The dietary laws are so strict that only drugs to treat life-threatening conditions may be consumed during the festival, which lasts for seven days in Israel and eight days for Jews in the rest of the world.

According to the Jerusalem Post newspaper, Rabbi Eliahu, a former chief rabbi, said men can take Viagra if they purchase special capsules made from kosher gelatin in which to put the pill before the holiday starts.

Viagra's Israeli manufacturer, Pfizer Pharmaceuticals-Israel, said swallowing the capsule does not breach Jewish law because the Viagra would not come into direct contact with the body.

A prescription for Viagra is issued in Israel on average once every minute, the newspaper reports.

Since Viagra was introduced seven years ago, more than 23 million men have been prescribed the drug worldwide, Pfizer says. Annual sales are worth nearly $2bn.

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SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (Reuters) - After more than a century on the fringe of America's consciousness, Mormons are riding a wave of media attention and public scrutiny — and say they welcome the chance to set a few things straight.

From Mitt Romney's bid to become the first Mormon in the White House to Public Broadcasting Service's four-hour documentary on Mormonism in May and a Hollywood movie opening this month focusing on one of Mormon history's darkest episodes, the once-isolated religion is moving into the open.

"We welcome it," Elder D. Todd Christofferson, a member of the Presidency of the Seventy, a church leadership body, said of the sudden attention.

"To the extent that attention can be informative as opposed to pejorative and there's a sincere interest and honest curiosity, I think that's positive," he said.

But areas the church would rather forget are sharing the limelight, including its awkward ties to nearly 40,000 fundamentalist Mormons who practice polygamy, which the church introduced before the Civil War and then banned in 1890.

"Big Love," HBO's series about a fictional polygamous family headed by a Viagra-popping husband in Utah, begins its second season this month, while Mormon fundamentalist leader Warren Jeffs will keep Americans tuned in to a real-life polygamous drama at his trial in September.

"We see them as in violation of civil law and in violation of church law," Christofferson said of Utah's polygamists.

VIEW ON POLITICS

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as the sect based in Salt Lake City, Utah, is formally known, is the fourth-largest U.S. religion and one of the richest, with 12.9 million members globally and an estimated $5 billion in annual revenue. More than half live outside the United States.

But Americans know little about it and are often skeptical of its beliefs. Thirty percent surveyed by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life in February said they would be less likely to back a Mormon for president, while 46 percent in a Gallup poll said they had an unfavorable opinion of Mormons.

Dr. Richard Land, the conservative president of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, said Mormonism's biggest skeptics are not evangelical Christians but those who shun all organized religion. "They tend to look at Mormons as religion on steroids," he said.

In an interview, Christofferson sought to dispel several long-festering misconceptions, such as whether Romney would take direction from the church's 96-year-old president, who is revered as a living prophet who speaks the word of God, if the Republican was elected to the White House.

"In our view the first loyalty of a member of the Church in his role as a government official is to the nation and his constituency," he said.

"Even where the church has taken a firm or vigorous position on something, which we do occasionally, if a member as a government officer votes in a different way or contrary to the church's position there's no church censure, there's no church discipline applied," he said.

GROWTH PEAKING?

He said the church was growing by about a million members every three to five years, a pace below previous official estimates of a million every three years. Experts say the rate, while fast relative to the Roman Catholic Church and some other religions, has slowed, especially in the United States.

"Retention is a problem for them, as it is in other religions, and it's going to take another two or three more years for us to know whether growth has peaked," said Jan Shipps, a Mormon expert and professor emeritus of American religion and history at Indiana University/Purdue University.

Christofferson said the church, which opposes abortion in most cases and gay marriage, is not pressing U.S. public schools to teach "intelligent design," which argues some forms of life are too complex to have simply evolved, although Mormon scriptures teach God directed the creation of life.

He said the Mormon church encourages political activism but adheres to the separation of church and state and does not officially support a candidate in the White House race, although Mormons and many prominent Utah residents are among the top donors to Romney's well-funded political campaign.

"It's a matter certainly of interest here," he said.

The church, founded in upstate New York in 1830 by Joseph Smith, has long struggled for mainstream acceptance. Many evangelical Christians are taught that Mormonism is a cult with a heretical interpretation of Scripture and doctrine.

Although Mormons revere Christ as Savior and consider themselves devout Christians, they reject the unified Trinity and teach God has a body of flesh and blood. They believe Smith was a prophet instructed by God to restore his true church.

Guided by an angel named Moroni, Smith professed to have discovered tablets written in what he called "reformed Egyptian" hieroglyphics that told the story of the Book of Mormon and detailing an ancient civilization of Israelites sent by God to America.

Smith was able to read and translate the tablets with the help of special transparent stones he used as spectacles.

(See also: "Mormonism — an American religion")

Christofferson said it was conceivable Mormonism could end a ban on women in its lay priesthood as it did with blacks in 1978, if God directs the church president to do so in a revelation. Revelations are a central tenant of Mormonism, giving the religion flexibility to evolve.

"We think the Lord continues to reveal his will," he said. Continue reading →

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Health officials in Pakistan say they have failed to immunise over 160,000 children against polio due to rumours the vaccine causes sexual impotence.

Parents in parts of northern Pakistan told the BBC news website they feared an "American conspiracy" to cut the fertility of the next generation.

Pakistan is one of four countries the World Health Organisation (WHO) says is a source of polio.

The WHO has led a $196m-a-year campaign to control the disease in Pakistan.

At least 39 cases of polio were reported in 2006, 15 of them in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). The NWFP and the tribal areas account for 20% of those targeted for immunisation.

Worldwide 1,902 cases of polio were reported during the year, a recent WHO report said.

A WHO meeting in Geneva last October heard that children paralysed by polio around the world were infected by viruses originating from Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and Nigeria.

Radio rumours

The main opposition to the drive in Pakistan came from local clerics who run illegal FM radio channels in many NWFP districts and the tribal areas, say officials.

Amirullah Khan, a resident of NWFP's Swat district, quoted Maulana Fazlullah of a local FM channel as telling his listeners the vaccination drive was "a conspiracy of the Jews and Christians to stunt the population growth of Muslims".

Maulana Fazlullah confirmed this to BBC, saying if the international organisations were keen on improving the health of the Muslims, they should help the hepatitis-C patients in the area.

Last year samples of the vaccine were laboratory-tested after a petition in Peshawar High Court alleged they contained oestrogen.

The hormone was not found, said Dr Waheed Khan, a health official.

But the FM channels have won many supporters in the more conservative areas of NWFP and the tribal region, officials have said.

Vaccine teams beaten up

A WHO report for 2006 said 66 localities in these areas were not covered by the immunisation staff due to logistical problems, and coverage in 320 localities was "poor" because of the anti-vaccine propaganda.

In some areas immunisation teams were beaten up by local people, officials said.

Elsewhere parents just refused to get their children immunised.

The WHO says global polio eradication efforts have reduced the annual incidence of polio worldwide from 350,000 cases in 1988 to 1,902 in 2006.

But the NWFP health officials believe anti-vaccine propaganda may jeopardise WHO's aim of making the world polio-free.

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The anti-impotence drug Viagra will be available on the High Street without a prescription from 14 February.

Boots the chemist is introducing a trial scheme at three of its branches in Manchester.

Men aged between 30 and 65 will be able to buy four pills for 50 after a consultation with the pharmacist.

But Dr Jeff Hackett, chairman of the British Society for Sexual Medicine, said many men were entitled to the drug on the NHS, without paying.

"We have some regulations at the moment that allow a large number of patients to get the drug free on the National Health Service," he said.

"One of the problems for pharmacists will be to identify these patients who actually shouldn't be paying who are legally entitled to get it free and that's quite a challenge."

Hour-long consultation

Men seeking the drug from the pharmacist will have to undergo some basic medical tests, and anyone wanting a repeat prescription would have to consult a doctor.

Boots pharmacist James Longdon said the men would have an hour-long consultation, including blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol checks.

He added that they would also be made aware that men with certain medical conditions could obtain the drug free of charge with a prescription from their GP.

Boots claims that only 10% of the three million men who suffer from impotence are being treated.

It said offering Viagra without a prescription could help to improve those figures.

The chemist also claimed the move would be a good way to monitor men's health, as erectile dysfunction was often a marker for a more serious underlying medical condition.

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A Chinese court has ordered two local firms to stop selling generic versions of the anti-impotence drug Viagra.

The court upheld the validity of Viagra-maker Pfizer's patent, ordering one firm to pay $38,000 (19,400) damages for trademark infringements.

In June, the same court in Beijing sided with Pfizer in overturning a decision by China's patent review board that favoured local drug-makers.

Despite the rulings, most drugs sold as Viagra in China are counterfeit.

But when it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, China agreed to get tougher on violations of intellectual property rights.

An official at the Beijing No 1 Intermediate People's Court confirmed the latest decision.

'Great brother'

The court ordered Beijing Health New Concept Pharmacy to stop selling blue pills resembling Viagra.

It told another company, Lianhuan Pharmaceutical Co, to stop making the pills and pay Pfizer 300,000 yuan in damages.

New York-based Pfizer recorded Viagra sales of $1.65bn (0.87bn) in 2005.

The Beijing court's ruling is the latest episode in a lengthy legal battle by the firm to establish its patent rights in China.

In 2004, China's patent review board sided with Chinese generic drug makers challenging Pfizer's exclusive right to make sildenafil citrate, the main active ingredient in Viagra.

Pfizer had appealed to China's State Intellectual Property Office (Sipo) over the 2004 decision by the patent review board permitting more than a dozen Chinese drug firms to use sildenafil citrate.

Viagra was introduced in China six years ago and after six months on the market, state media said 90% of the blue pills sold in Shanghai were fake.

Viagra is known locally as "weige" or "great brother" in Chinese.

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WASHINGTON - Patients who suffer from a rare disease that causes continuous high blood pressure in the arteries of the lungs received a new treatment choice Friday.

The Food and Drug Administration

Food and Drug Administration said it approved Letairis to treat pulmonary arterial hypertension. The condition causes continuous high blood pressure in the arteries that carry oxygen-poor blood from the heart to the lungs. As the arteries narrow, the heart must pump harder, which weakens it with time. The disease affects about 100,000 people in the United States.

The drug, known generically as ambrisentan, is made by Gilead Sciences Inc., based in Foster City, Calif. The company said the drug would be available next week.

The drug comes with strong warnings as it may cause birth defects and shouldn't be used by women who are pregnant or may become pregnant. It also can cause liver damage. Patients taking the once-daily tablets must undergo monthly blood tests to check for injury to the liver, the FDA said.

A second pharmaceutical company, Encysive Pharmaceuticals Inc., was awaiting word on whether its drug to treat the same condition had been approved. The status of that drug, Thelin, or sitaxsentan sodium, wasn't immediately clear Friday. An FDA spokeswoman referred questions on the drug's status to the company. A spokesman said the Houston company had heard nothing.

Other approved medications to treat the condition include Tracleer and Revatio, a lower dose of the same key ingredient in the impotency pill Viagra (Sildenafil Citrate).

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Thanks to its unusual status as a US self-governing commonwealth, the island's four million residents elect their own government, while enjoying most of the economic benefits of being American.

Puerto Rico's currency is the US dollar; its citizens are entitled to US passports, but they do not pay most federal taxes. Thanks to long and historic ties to cities like New York, many are bilingual and feel as assimilated as they want to be with the US mainland.

But when it comes to the economy, it is clear that the real power to shape Puerto Rico's future often lies in the hands of multinational corporations and the US Treasury.

Barceloneta is a coastal town of just over 20,000 residents - about 40 minutes drive west of the capital San Juan. Twenty years ago it was best known for the juiciness of its pineapples, but now it is a pharmaceutical hub, and home to America's only factory making Viagra - Pfizer's impotence drug.

Hi-tech community

Taking the turning for Barceloneta it is clear from the skyline that things are booming. Apart from the landscaped factories, the town's colourful and gleaming shopping mall - which opened five years ago - stands out against the rich green of tropical forest on the horizon.

Walk into the huge restaurant area at lunchtime, and you find hundreds of well-heeled employees from the four multinational companies that have a base in the town.

"The good thing about having so many pharmaceutical companies on the same site is that we're a high-technology community here," said one Pfizer chemical engineer.

She was keen to steer conversation away from the little blue Viagra pills which have replaced pineapples as the town's best known export, but admitted that when she mentioned her employer's name, friends would smile and ask about the sex drug.

Pfizer's most vocal advocates in the town can be found in the mayor's office. I drove up to the gates of their plant on the outskirts of Barceloneta, in a shiny pick-up belonging to the deputy-mayor, Lisandro Reyes. He pointed out two new schools and row after row of new housing lining the route.

"Pfizer is a great partner here in Barceloneta. We're proud of all the drugs made here, including Viagra," he said.

"It's a resource for the elderly, or the young. We're bringing some happiness around the world for couples who enjoy Viagra as a means of getting their love life in order," he added with a grin.

The other Fortune 500 firms with plants here include Bristol-Meyers Squibb, Merck Sharp & Dome and Abbott Laboratories - making up a specialist workforce of around 8,000 people.

These firms located here thanks to tax incentives and duty-free access to the US market. Puerto Rico's import and export figures have doubled since the late 1980s, and the economy has transformed from agricultural to industrial in a generation.

Economic fears

But without any substantial natural resources of its own, the island depends on the business and investment it can attract from the mainland.

More than 90% of its exports go there, and many economists worry that beyond growth areas like Barceloneta sustainable development is not being encouraged enough.

The influential Caribbean Business journal sounded a terse warning last week:

"Slow economic growth, low personal income, inability to create jobs in the formal economy, a greying population, a growing fiscal deficit, high public debt-burden per capita, and huge government subsidies, further aggravate the issues that are plaguing the economy."

Downtown Barceloneta shows a different face of the town

Pfizer's local-born vice president for manufacturing in Puerto Rico, Carlos del Rio, said he was proud the company had helped to forge a "middle class" in the Barceloneta area, creating around three jobs in the community for each job at the company.

Directly and indirectly, they have helped fund Barceloneta's entire infrastructure, from the fire department to a state-of-the-art sewage treatment facility.

The company's contributes around $12m to the town's annual budget.

Complaints

While most people I spoke to were glad of the cash influx, which is about to manifest itself further with the widening of the town's high street, there were some sceptics.

Ivan Arocho, who runs one of the town centre's many pharmacies is one: "We make pennies, they make money," he said with a sigh. He's been in the town for more than 20 years, and liked it better in the old days, before the factories came.

"It's made jobs, but there's lots of air contamination. A lot of people complain," he added.

Mr Reyes says strict federal laws on emissions provide adequate safeguards for the environment.

"With Viagra and tequila, grandma is happy," reads a restaurant slogan

A greater threat to the town's economic growth comes in the form of the macro-economic uncertainties that lie ahead. Mr Reyes said he was confident that attractive tax incentives and investment deals would help to deepen development for decades to come, but local executives cannot make guarantees.

"It's always being looked at. Puerto Rico is very competitive. We've tried to continually invest in our plants," said Mr del Rio, addressing the possibility that the corporate headquarters might make the decision to move on at any time, to keep costs low.

Viagra's patent will expire in a few years' time, and all the plant can do is continue to perform successfully.

"We're in a competitive environment, so the answer to all that is that our job is to try to remain as competitive as possible."

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