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Injured by an Impotence drug?

Impotence drugs are prescribed to treat Erectile Dysfunction (ED). Over half of all males between 40 and 70 years of age experience erectile dysfunction, making it the most common chronic condition affecting men. Viagra, Cialis and Levitra are the most popular impotence drugs on the market today.

Viagra is sold by Pfizer Inc. and was approved by the FDA, on March 27, 1998. Cialis is marketed by Eli Lilly & Co. and ICOS Corp and was approved on November 21, 2003. Levitra is sold by GlaxoSmithKline PLC and Schering-Plough Corp. and was granted FDA approval on August 19, 2003.

The FDA has received reports of vision problems; including blindness from patients taking all three of the major ED drugs. The vision problems among these patients were caused by NAION or non-arteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy. NAION results from a painless swelling of the optic nerve that causes a rapid loss of vision. NAION patients usually have no advanced warning of vision problems and often awake one morning with vision loss.

These reports prompted the FDA to order warnings about potential vision problems onto the labels of Viagra, Cialis and Levitra.  The following warning was approved by the FDA for the warning label for all three drugs: “A small number of post marketing reports of sudden vision loss attributed to NAION (nonarteritic ischemic optic neuropathy), a condition in which blood flow is blocked to the optic nerve.”