By Linton Weeks
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, April 23, 1998; Page B04

This column comes with a Parents Advisory Warning. The subject is: Viagra, the newly approved impotence pill from Pfizer. The drug has the Web aswirl. On the Internet you can read the official info about the drug, which is taken orally about an hour before sex and has worked on some 70 percent of those tested. You can also find jokes, a Food and Drug Administration fact sheet, testimonials from users -- and liars -- and even a clinic that claims it will prescribe Viagra after a phone consultation.

The starting point is the Pfizer site. From the home page you can click on a story about erectile dysfunction and read the deadly-dull fine print about Viagra. If you look closely, you'll discover that one of the drug's mild side effects is the inability to distinguish between the colors green and blue.

As one 49-year-old friend put it, "I don't really care about the difference between green and blue."

Such quips are showing up all over the Net. In David Letterman's Top Ten List Archives, for instance, you'll find a roster of the side effects of the new impotence drug. The number one side effect, says Letterman, is, "pregnancy."

The FDA site sports a bunch of pages about the new miracle drug. The Q & A sheet answers some consumer questions. For example, How does Viagra work? and What does it cost? It does not answer others that folks are asking, such as: Is it true that women also benefit from taking Viagra? and Will college kids now have to compete with platinum-haired, platinum-carded old guys?

If you're looking for war stories and discussions of the drug's efficacy, try Deja News. Remember that people who post messages on the Internet are not always who, or what, they appear to be. But the give and take here, in the newsgroups -- such as alt.support.impotence -- is stimulating.

And if you're searching for the drug itself, clinics such as the Virginia Urology Clinic in Richmond post schedules of seminars. The Vascular Center for Men in Milwaukee takes the process one step farther. The center advertises phone consultations for $50 and re-fill consultations for $25. Earlier this week, the phone there was busy busy busy.

Pfizer is concerned about the blossoming of sites such as the Milwaukee one. "We're against it for a couple of reasons," says Pfizer spokesman Andrew McCormick. He explains that it's a bad way to practice medicine and that doctors should examine patients to learn if there are physiological reasons for impotence, such as diabetes or a heart condition. Also, patients taking nitroglycerin or other nitrates and Viagra at the same time can experience a severe reduction in blood pressure, McCormick says.

Eileen Tsuchiya of the Virginia Urology Center believes that older patients will probably keep going to their doctors. "Younger patients may be more willing to take the risk with their health on the Internet," she says. "And more embarrassed to seek medical help."

Linton Weeks can be reached at weeksl@washpost.com