The spirit of Viagra moved upon the waters

Executive direction (ED) of purpose

For particularly medical reasons, I have never considered the use of Viagra, and this is because of the apparent side effects that greeted its advent on the scene almost a quarter of a century ago.

Besides, on the wide spectrum of erectile dysfunction, there would be no need for it except for recreational purposes and I have had encounters with certain who have required medical attention for painful priapism, and I doubt they have summoned up the courage to tell of their ordeal in jest even after a decade of their somewhat embarrassing experience.

The rise of watery things

However, my eyes fell on this tale at the weekend, and it deserves some commentary, for the story suggests that the drinking water at a church in Kenya was laced with Viagra which led to the arousal of all male members in the church and some attempting to exploit their situation fully in harassing female members of the congregation. [The World News: Kenyan Police Hunting For 19-Year-Old Girl Suspected Of Adding Viagra In A Church Water Tank]

I am quite amused that all 17 male members in the church drank the water in sufficient quantities before the service to all be aroused literally at the same time, it almost feels like the water was fed to a trough and snouts sunk in to take their fill, maybe an affliction of thirst befell them all at once, or someone received the revelation that the water now had the properties of the biblical Pool of Bethesda where the first who got in was healed and for this church in Taita Taveta County all male members rose to an occasion they had not been invited to.

Men seeking a Jezebel

Taita Taveta County is far enough from the major Kenyan cities of Mombasa or Nairobi, that one might think that kind of excitement in the congregation is rapturous and calling for orgasmic ululation, but we would be quite ahead of ourselves because it is not clear from the story that the water was tested to determine if it was indeed laced with Viagra or some other Sildenafil compound.

Meanwhile, the police are after a suspect, Tracey Fadhili, 19, who apparently lives near the church and was seen at the church compound the previous evening, but this does not suggest she was the culprit. I would not want to cast aspersions on the investigative competence of the rural police force, I, however, have my doubts that she was responsible for this situation. It begs the question of why she would lace the water storage with Viagra and to what end? As there is no other backstory on her, one can only wonder. They found a Jezebel to castigate.

Send them home for it

Adding to my amusement is the idea that this free blessing of manhood excitation is considered shocking. Involuntary as the response might have been, it can hardly be considered shocking for it might well be a miraculous manifestation for those who had given up on believing Lazarus could rise again. What I would not accept is the idea that the use of Viagra makes you lecherous that there is literally no self-control and the aroused seeks to mate with the next available female they cast their lascivious eyes on. Does the church even believe in miracles anymore?

Furthermore, a male organ erection is not a weird feeling, that it happened during a church service, unfortunate as it might seem, is not against nature or the expression of self, weirder things have happened to men and this, I can assure you is not one of them.

If the pastor were at any time inspired and directed, he would have come to one useful realisation, closed the service, blessed the congregation, and encouraged the men to go home to their wives and girlfriends with the word that of hope, faith and love that endure, love is the greatest of all, and when boosted by the ramifications of Viagra, you make for a happier church. What more can we ask for? Leave Tracey Fadhili alone, she did no wrong.

Humantarian Pfizer fed Nigerian kids poison drug - allegedly

The devil's work in Africa

The sensationalism of the headlines made us want to cover our heads in shame as we tried to defend what was indefensible.

The Muslim North in Nigeria had refused to allow their children to be vaccinated against polio which in many ways delayed the eradication of polio in Sub-Saharan Africa, in some cases; places that were once clear became vulnerable too.

Anyone who read the by-line in the Scotsman - "Polio vaccination dismissed as devil's work across Africa" would have sniggered; the ignorant savages do not know what is good for them.

With hindsight, there is much to reckon with this refusal, Kano State in Nigeria has just sued Pfizer for a $2.75 billion compensation for using 200 of their children as guinea pigs to test an unapproved drug - Trovan Floxacin - under the guise of humanitarian aid.

Help from the devil

There was an outbreak of measles, cholera and meningitis in 1996; the World Health Organisation and Pfizer offered to help the government with this problem but it transpired that these children were given drugs that lead to complications, deformities and even death.

It would appear some independent research also found some batches of medication to be contaminated, allegedly.

What is quite disturbing about this case if it does get to court and suffer proper judicial scrutiny is that fellow Nigerians might have been party to this rotten exercise whilst the gravitas of the WHO might have given legitimacy to an activity that is completely unethical and utterly beneath contempt.

The might of Big Pharma that Pfizer represents might have hoped to exploit rife corruption in Nigeria so that this almost "eugenics" exercise would not be exposed, someone must have been paid off being privy to what was about to happen to helpless, innocent, frail and trusting little children and their seemingly gullible parents.

Low-level hysteria

Once this rotten activity was discovered, it was no surprise that low-level hysteria was employed by the religious leaders and government to prevent vaccinations from taking place a few years on.

Who was to say another Big Pharma firm would not use the large demographic of deprived Africa to test some drug for the benefit of the more privileged West.

There are many including the rich shareholders of Pfizer who would wish this suit was both frivolous and calumnious, but I would contend that some legal advice must have seen serious merit in this case.

This reeks of the infamous Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male which ran from 1932 to 1972 in America where poor illiterate black males were denied treatment for syphilis. There are stringent laws guiding medical trials in the West, but with the oaf of Professor Eyitayo Lambo sitting in the Ministry of Health in Nigeria, it is unlikely that he would have been agitated at all by this rotten exercise, though it happened long before he became a minister.

He could not be bothered about the prevalence of sub-standard drugs in Nigerian Teaching Hospitals because the case was not presented directly to him as it was to his predecessor.

Too small a price to pay

$2.75 billion sounds like a high price to pay but no price can be high enough a penalty for subjecting helpless innocent children to deafness, paralysis, brain damage and blindness with drugs that cause such immeasurable misery.

Let us see, with revenue of over $48 billion in 2006 if the price on the head of an African child is worth anything compared to if this exercise had been conducted in the West.

The deception in the guise of humanitarian aid in a very vulnerable situation is just unforgivable, I am all too livid with rage as I now understand the reticence of the people to take on new vaccinations, they were duped, robbed, betrayed and literally killed off for possible block-buster drug success - not only should Kano State be suing Pfizer, Nigeria and Africa as a whole should be scrutinising what other gifts we have been made to ingest in the guise of prophylaxis or therapy when in fact we were guinea pigs in an unconscionably malevolent trial.

Time to dump your Viagra pills down the drain and make sure they are properly flushed away before your toilet bowl thinks it is dysfunctional too.

Addendum:

Read the last paragraph as a metaphor, a reader left this comment - Actually, it is probably a bad idea to dump much Viagra in a toilet. Hormones and psychoactive drugs are starting to show up in the blood of aquatic organisms as well as in many bodies of fresh water in the United States and other industrialized countries. - I would agree, the prospect of seeing marine life cured of erectile dysfunction would be too horrific to countenance. Thanks Don.