when knowing what it does is more important than knowing what it does

[acroyear]

BBC NEWS | UK | England | Tyne | Viagra used to save baby's life:

Lewis Goodfellow was born at 24 weeks weighing just 1lb 8oz. One of his lungs had failed and not enough oxygen was able to get into his bloodstream.

Doctors at Newcastle's Royal Victoria Infirmary then tried Sildenafil, also known under the trade name of Viagra, and Lewis is now home with his parents.

The drug opened up tiny blood vessels in the baby's lungs.

Parents Jade Goodfellow and John Barclay, from Walker, Newcastle believe the drug - more usually associated with anti-impotence - saved his life.

Comments

[javasaurus.livejournal.com]

Very cool! Just as cool was this bionic eye article (to which the baby-viagra article provided a link).

Hmmm world's youngest user of Viagra?
(I can only wonder what the tabloids would do with this story)

[javasaurus.livejournal.com]

The article got me interested, so I did a little additional digging.

It turns out that this isn't the first such use of Viagra. I found a 2003 case report (published in 2004) that was similar, and a journal article from 2002 testing the procedure on pigs.

Amusing side note: Viagra was originally intended to treat angina (insuffient blood reaching the heart tissues). It didn't work so well for the angina, but there was an interesting side effect...