Chapter 11
PRIAPAX™
A brief history of a wonder drug.
As the reader has no doubt suspected, Priapax™ was a male-potency drug. There were many such drugs on the market in those days, but what made Priapax™ destined to wipe out the competition was that instead of working on the blood vessels of the penis, it worked instead on chemistry of the brain. The drug's active ingredient had the effect of enhancing confidence by inhibiting self-doubt, second-guessing, or any kind of ambivalence whatsoever. In short, Priapax™ made erections a matter of volition rather than arousal. A man on Priapax™ had only to decide to get an erection and he got one, just as a man who decides to make a fist can make a fist. Aside from a few who lamented that it would take the suspense out of the mating ritual, virtually all who collaborated in the research and development of Priapax™ agreed that it was indeed a wonder drug.
But the drug never made it through the final stages of product development and was never placed on the open market, since rigorous testing -- first on rats, then on baboons -- had determined that prolonged intensive use (which was defined as more than two pills per day for more than seven consecutive days) could cause severe side-effects in up to 2 percent of users. These side effects included headache, nausea, ringing in the ears, dry-mouth, diarrhea, constipation, hair loss, depression, unaccountable fits of rage, and acute paranoia.
Now, the world is full of men who would happily risk any or all of these effects in return for the unique power that Priapax™ offered its users. The Merkwurdigliebe Pharmaceutical Company, of Zurich, Switzerland, knew this and was in the process of developing a carefully worded warning label that would finally make the drug available to the public while still managing to satisfy the concerns of its lawyers. But just as the wording of this label was being finalized, news came from the laboratory -- further testing had determined Priapax™ to be addictive.
Although there is something inherently appealing to pharmaceutical companies about marketing addictive substances to an eager public (evidently something to do with Capitalism), the sober and, if you will, upstanding members of the Merkwurdigliebe board immediately recognized that they could not be responsible for hoards of rampant men running about the globe with only one thing on their minds and the uninhibited capacity to act on it -- an unimaginable scenario.
No, there was simply no question of making this once-promising male potency drug available for public consumption. The only question that remained to be answered was: what to do with the immense inventory of Priapax™ that had already been produced and packaged, ready for immediate release?
A brief history of a wonder drug.
As the reader has no doubt suspected, Priapax™ was a male-potency drug. There were many such drugs on the market in those days, but what made Priapax™ destined to wipe out the competition was that instead of working on the blood vessels of the penis, it worked instead on chemistry of the brain. The drug's active ingredient had the effect of enhancing confidence by inhibiting self-doubt, second-guessing, or any kind of ambivalence whatsoever. In short, Priapax™ made erections a matter of volition rather than arousal. A man on Priapax™ had only to decide to get an erection and he got one, just as a man who decides to make a fist can make a fist. Aside from a few who lamented that it would take the suspense out of the mating ritual, virtually all who collaborated in the research and development of Priapax™ agreed that it was indeed a wonder drug.
But the drug never made it through the final stages of product development and was never placed on the open market, since rigorous testing -- first on rats, then on baboons -- had determined that prolonged intensive use (which was defined as more than two pills per day for more than seven consecutive days) could cause severe side-effects in up to 2 percent of users. These side effects included headache, nausea, ringing in the ears, dry-mouth, diarrhea, constipation, hair loss, depression, unaccountable fits of rage, and acute paranoia.
Now, the world is full of men who would happily risk any or all of these effects in return for the unique power that Priapax™ offered its users. The Merkwurdigliebe Pharmaceutical Company, of Zurich, Switzerland, knew this and was in the process of developing a carefully worded warning label that would finally make the drug available to the public while still managing to satisfy the concerns of its lawyers. But just as the wording of this label was being finalized, news came from the laboratory -- further testing had determined Priapax™ to be addictive.
Although there is something inherently appealing to pharmaceutical companies about marketing addictive substances to an eager public (evidently something to do with Capitalism), the sober and, if you will, upstanding members of the Merkwurdigliebe board immediately recognized that they could not be responsible for hoards of rampant men running about the globe with only one thing on their minds and the uninhibited capacity to act on it -- an unimaginable scenario.
No, there was simply no question of making this once-promising male potency drug available for public consumption. The only question that remained to be answered was: what to do with the immense inventory of Priapax™ that had already been produced and packaged, ready for immediate release?
© by N. Ominous 16.4.06
