Michael Green   Manuel Vargas   phone, office information Additional information on moral philosophy Additional Reading on Abortion Additional Reading on Euthanasia Additional Reading on Rationing Rationing Criteria for rationing organs Prisoners' organs for sale		Medical Ethics: Viagra in France INTERNATIONAL PAPERS, Slate, 27 May 1998 Who's Sorry Now? By Alexander Chancellor Viagra still refuses to be ousted from its dominant position in the world's press. Le Monde of Paris, France's most prestigious newspaper, reported Tuesday that the anti-impotence drug was almost certain to be excluded from the list of medicines approved for free prescriptions by the French state social security system. In a front-page comment in La Repubblica of Rome, celebrated columnist Gianni Riotta called Viagra "the Peter Pan trap" and asked whether it was really a medicine against male impotence or, rather, "a chemist's aphrodisiac." "Does it serve to cure an illness or to regulate eternal adolescence? Does it belong to the world of pharmaceutical drugs or to that of aesthetic surgery, like silicone breast implants?" Riotta asked. Viagra, he went on, creates the illusion that time never ends and that the seasons are forever renewed. "Leaders like Clinton and Blair, who are already middle-aged, are described as 'young,' " he said. "But at Sinatra's funeral, the eternal Gregory Peck amazed us with his beauty and his bearing." When the year 2000 arrives, he concluded, "the most beautiful and happiest old people, pill or no pill, will be those like Peck, proud, aware, and strong in their imperfect human reality." This page was originally posted on 5/28/98; 10:20:35 AM and was last built on 5/28/98; 10:20:37 AM with BBEdit and Frontier 5 on a Macintosh running System 8.0.