Some Singapore men are just stubborn - or plain dumb. It is not as though there have not been enough scare stories in the media, especially in the vernacular tabloids, of men who had died or became ill after taking illegal sex pills. But there are men who still persist in taking such pills. There is, certainly, the urge, and the need to perform. Some of these men must believe that the ability to perform is the very definition of manhood. No way that they are going to be limp wimps. Also, they reason that those who had died taking them were just unlucky poor sods. It couldn't happen to them. After all, they had been taking those pills for some time, their friends too, and nothing untoward had happened.
But what they do not know is that the levels of the drug in the pills that can kill them vary from batch to batch. The drug is either glibenclamide, which is meant to treat diabetics, or sildenafil, an active ingredient in Viagra. High levels of either can be fatal, the literature says. Some men also boast that if they have to go, they might as well die in harness, as it were. But death may not be immediate and it will not be painless. The victims will suffer first from complications like pneumonia, multiple organ failure and even swelling of the brain. One victim was found lying in a pool of vomit and urine.
A coroner's inquest last Tuesday found that five men who went into a coma and died early this year likely had taken lethal sex pills. The deaths were the first of several expected to come before the coroner in the coming months. Ten men aged between 35 and 84 (yes, the heroic old!) have lost their lives since March after popping illegal sex pills. The Health Sciences Authority (HSA) and the police have been raiding pill peddlers in the back alleys of red-light districts. But, as an HSA officer said, as long as there is demand, there will be peddlers. In the end, it is the men themselves who must stop behaving like fools.
