Good to know

Boy howdy, this is good to hear...I was worried.

Aww, viagra helps sleepy hamsters. That's quite sweet.

I love those double entendres of yours.

Penis pills being used to treat jet-lagged hamsters?!?

garamet was right!!!

DAMN YOU, BIG PHARMA!!!!!!!!!

It's called a "preclinical trial."

Wonder if they were all male hamsters?

Addditionally, I wonder what it cost to jet-lag a hamster?

Quit defending them, you corporate lackey!

I'm going to guess several billion dollars.

^Just the salary of the research scientist paid to sit there switching the lights on and off at regular intervals. And a second scientist to feed the Viagra to the hamsters, and a research assistant to clean the cages.

I'd love to see the grant proposal for that trial...

I imagine it's not as random as it sounds.

Viagra has several affects on the body (apart from the, uh, well-publicized one) which may make it plausibly useful for treating jet lag.

Nah, that's what Pfizer will spend flying the sleep therapy specialists down to Bermuda for golf weekends, and lobbying the FDA to grant them a new patent for this "new indication."

If it actually treats jet lag--and people choose to buy it for that purpose--I'm not seeing a downside. If people would rather have a jet lag treatment than the money the treatment costs, everybody wins.

Here's the process:

First you test your drug on animals. I can only guess why they chose hamsters for this one rather than mice, which share 85% of their chromosomes in common with humans. Possibly hamsters because their metabolism is slightly more rapid than mice (so they'd only have to turn the lights on and off for, say, five nights instead of six), and because it's hard to find laboratory mice that haven't been bred for cancer knockouts, etc.

If the drug does what you want it to do and doesn't kill too many hamsters in the process, then you move on to Phase I clinical trials - trials in healthy human volunteers who, in this case, do *not* suffer from jet lag. What you're testing for here is not efficacy, but incidence of adverse events or side effects. For a drug of this type, you'll want a simple two-arm blinded study, drug vs. placebo.

If your drug doesn't make any of the healthy volunteers psychotic, and only a few of them report a rash or other minor side effect (or, in the case of sildanifil, priapism), then you move on to...

Phase II clinical trials, in which you recruit from patients reporting jet lag. There you test for efficacy. Again, a blinded two-arm, drug vs. placebo. (Later competitors like Cialis, etc. will have to test against Viagra *and* placebo in a three-arm trial to show that they're better).

If your drug EITHER works a few percentage points better than placebo OR has fewer side effects than placebo, then you can apply for a new patent for a new indication.

Staying sober and hydrated during a flight will prevent jet-lag in most people.

Those who want this drug will pay for it out of pocket because the insurers will consider it fluff and refuse to cover it, and docs will advise taking Dramamine, the old OTC standby that people have used for generations.

Oh, and the price will be predictably steep, because the primary driver behind the new indication is that the patent has run out for the initial indication, and there are now numerous ED drugs, many of which have fewer side effects than Viagra.

Unless, of course, you *cough* illegally order the drug online from a Canadian pharmacy.

I wonder what they'll call the "new" drug? And I wonder if it will have the same incidence of cardiac AEs in jet-lag patients as in ED patients?

And, again, I wonder if it only works in male patients?

So many questions...

What does happen when a woman takes Viagra?

Must...fight...impulse..to link...to Chyna porn....

I shudder to think.

There is a drug to boost female libido, but I have no idea what it's called or what it's made of. Lemme look into it...

I heard something about it increasing blood flow to the clitoris to increase stimulation.

So, you have this jet setting executive type.

He's standing at the front of the room, giving a really important presentation, feeling pretty good - three hours off the plane, and he's working fine, popped a few of those new pills, so no jet lag.

And then, a very attractive woman comes in the room with refreshments and slightly revealing uniform.

Hilarity ensues.


If they market it as a jetlag drug, will they have to put "warning, may increase quantities of erections in male users" as side effects?
Cos they probably should...

I didn't get jet lag, but my ears did pop.

I only drank Pepsi, during my overseas 14 hour flight.

Conclusion: Pepsi helps prevent jet lag.

^The caffeine probably helped, too.

Next time, chew gum when the plane starts its final approach and your ears will pop less.

That would make sense, since increasing blood flow is what gets yer pecker up.

I conclude from this that masturbating furiously for the entirety of the flight will stave off jet lag.

Diamonds.