Following the recall of five brands of male sex enhancement pills sold on Amazon by their manufacturers, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) has issued an alert intimating the public of the recall of the drugs. The public alert with No. 010/2022, was signed by the agency’s director-general, Prof. Moji Adeyeye. The drugs were recalled due to a notification by Amazon to the Food and Drug Agency (FDA), U.S.A, of the laboratory analysis which found the products to contain undeclared Tadalafil/Sildenafil.
The alert said that the products are marketed as dietary supplements for male sexual enhancement and sold online on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com. This is not the issue. The issue, according to the agency, is that Sildenafil and Tadalafil in the drugs are ingredients known as phosphodiesterase (PDE-5) inhibitor found in FDA-approved products for the treatment of male erectile dysfunction. The drugs had to be recalled because the safety and efficacy of the two ingredients in them was yet to be confirmed. This has implications for people with diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, or heart disease who often take nitrates.
Consequently, NAFDAC advised that members of the public should henceforth stop the purchase or use of Alpha male plus male enhancer with undeclared Tadalafil. Those in possession of the drugs should hand them over to the nearest NAFDAC office. In addition, the agency urged patients who experience problems associated with using any of the implicated products to contact their healthcare providers or doctors. “NAFDAC encourages healthcare professionals, consumers and patients to report adverse events related to the use of the products to the nearest NAFDAC office, or NAFDAC PRASCOR (20543 TOLLS FREE from all networks). The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), which reported the story, said the agency also called on the public to report any adverse events via pharmacovigilance@nafdac.gov.ng, or through E-reporting platforms available on the NAFDAC website, or via the Med-Safety application available for download on android and IOS stores.
We appreciate these details and urge members of the public, particularly those that have been using these sex enhancers, and those intending to use them, to take full advantage of it. We have many of such drugs all over the country. Indeed, the rate at which we are bombarded with advertisements of these ‘Be a man’ drugs, one would be tempted to think that man lives by sex alone.
We know that to be a man, as they say, is not a day’s job. Indeed, it was the great Chief Commander Ebenezer Obey, who sang many years ago that it is not easy to be a man. Ko easy lati je omo okunrin …, the Juju maestro sang in one of his many evergreens. Of course, Obey was then speaking literally to the numerous bills that the man has to pick as the head of the house. The house rent, electricity bills, housekeeping allowance, and all. But that was in one of the country’s glorious eras when the ability to shoulder those responsibilities actually defined the man.
Nowadays, our minds wander to a completely different area when we see or hear ‘be a man’. Sex. Or, put succinctly, sex enhancement drugs otherwise known as aphrodisiacs. One would think the only way to demonstrate being a man these days is by showing prowess and stamina on the bed, given the way these drugs are advertised — online, in the traditional media, at motor parks, in public buses and what have you.
Sadly, many, if not most of these, drugs are harmful to our systems while some of them actually kill slowly. We are particularly worried because of the various kinds of products on the online platforms, from electronics to shoes, wrist watches, clothing, telephones, edibles, drugs, etc. that are shipped in without any test, either for efficacy of claims or safety, or both. Yet, many of the operators of the platforms know next-to-nothing about the products. The sector, despite its phenomenal growth, is either not regulated or under-regulated.
The recall of the sex enhancement pills, not due to our local efforts but due to external findings, shows how porous our gatekeeping process in stopping unwholesome drugs and other products from entering the country is. This is not good enough. We urge the Federal Government to provide NAFDAC and other agencies in charge of this sector with the wherewithal to ease their operations while the personnel too should be more alive to their responsibilities. It is not particularly helpful to shut the gate after the horse had bolted. As they say, ‘prevention is better than cure’.