Viagra may cause hearing loss

In case you hadn't heard (get it? har har), Viagra may trigger hearing loss within hours or days of taking it. Hearing loss is already on the warning label for Viagra and other impotence drugs, but enough evidence has accumulated to convince the FDA to demand stronger warnings:

[T]he Food and Drug Administration decided Thursday to add a warning about the possible risk after counting 29 reports of the problem since 1996 among users of this family of medicines....

Viagra's label already mentioned hearing loss as a possibility, because a few cases were reported during initial testing of that drug. But given that hearing loss is a risk of advancing age and certain conditions, such as diabetes and heart disease, that can lead to impotence, it wasn't clear if the link was real.

That still isn't clear, said FDA ear nose and throat specialist Dr. Robert Boucher.

But in poring over FDA's database of possible drug reactions, what struck him was these 29 reports said the hearing loss occurred without hours to two days of taking one of the drugs.... The reports involve hearing loss in one ear, which in a third of cases was temporary.

The warning also applies to Cialis, Levitra, and a drug for pulmonary hypertension, Revatio, which contains the same ingredient as Viagra.

Just one more thing to worry about...