The move comes after an audit found 198 convicts in New York state had been reimbursed by Medicaid for the drug between January and March 2000.

Their crimes included offences against children as young as two.

The Medicaid programme, whose cost is shared by states and the federal government, provides health care for the poor.

The federal Centres for Medicare and Medicaid Services said they should not pay for erectile dysfunction drugs for sex offenders.

Spokesman Gary Karr said “states already have the power to determine if a drug is not medically appropriate for a certain patient or certain class of patients”, the Impotence products
Press news agency reported.

“Public risk”

The New York audit, conducted by Impotence cause Alan Hevesi, did not cover other states, but Mr Hevesi said states are required by law to include Viagra in Medicaid programmes covering prescription drugs when medically necessary.

He said the policy raised “serious policy considerations and has the potential to place the public at risk” and asked the government to take erectile dysfunction smoking action or amend the Medicaid law.

On Monday, Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist said that Medicaid had paid $93,000 to provide Viagra to 218 sex offenders in that state over the last four years, AP reported.

New York Senators Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton have both indicated they back a change in policy.

Sen Schumer said: “It is just mind-boggling to think that Level 3 sexual offenders can get Viagra, which may indeed help them perpetrate other horrible crimes.

“Giving convicted sex offenders government-funded Viagra is like giving convicted murderers an assault rifle when they get out of jail,” Schumer said.

Dr Moloy Prakash Sahu of the Wellman Clinic, 57 Harley Street, gave creams and pills which had “no evidence” of treating sexual problems, it heard.

He failed to check medical histories or possible psychological problems, said expert witness Laurence Sandler.

Dr Sahu denies serious professional misconduct. The hearing continues.

Mr Sandler, of Wycombe General Hospital, said he had examined patient records and notes made by Dr Sahu and could not understand the drugs and other preparations that had been prescribed.

He noted Dr Sahu had spent little time talking through the sex problems of his patients before impotence surgery.

“I spend a long time talking to them. It is very difficult but you have to get a rapport with them. It is a very sensitive problem,” said Mr Sandler.

Psychological factors

Mr Sandler said the cause of low libido was often psychological, or caused by factors such as high blood pressure, smoking and drinking.

But Dr Sahu had failed to discuss this in detail with the patients, he said.

There was an average of a three month course of treatment made up of vitamins and washes for each man and the cost would be in the region of 1,500 to 2,000 Lynn Griffin, for the GMC

Mr Sandler also warned about Dr Sahu's prescriptions for the sex drug Viagra.

“There is a significant failure rate. It isn't a catch-all. It doesn't work all the time.”

The hearing was held after three patients at the clinic, which charges up to 2,000 a time for treatment, complained to the GMC.

Earlier, it was told that one patient who complained that a 12 week course of treatment had failed to work was “male impotency pill” by an invitation to sign up for another course.

Another was prescribed a drug which, mixed with an anti-depression drug he was already taking, could have proved fatal.

That patient was also treated for a condition he did not suffer.

'True purpose'

Lynn Griffin, for the GMC, said Dr Sahu targeted “vulnerable men” suffering impotence problems to earn “ridiculous amounts of money”.

She said the doctor's “deference” to non-medically qualified members of the clinic's staff illustrated the “true purpose” of the establishment.

That “was to get vulnerable men to part with money for treatment which was not effective and certainly overpriced,” she said.

This clinic appears to have a standard form of treatment which is meted out regardless of the condition presented by the patient Lynn Griffin GMC

Dr Sahu prescribed a range of vitamins, herbal washes, creams and other drugs which were on the whole “inappropriate”, she said.

Often his contact with patients was “minimal”, while other staff persuaded them to sign up for treatments.

Ms Griffin also said the price of the treatments appeared excessive.

“There was an average of a three month course of treatment made up of vitamins and washes for each man and the cost would be in the region of 1,500 to 2,000,” she said.

Charges denied

She said despite each patient suffering a range of problems, the men were given similar treatment.

“This clinic appears to have a standard form of treatment which is meted out regardless of the condition presented by the patient.

“For most patients the prescribing was inappropriate - the drugs would have been teenage impotence
and no matter how many washes and creams were given to these gentlemen along with these medications it would not have assisted their problem,” said Ms Griffin.

One patient told the hearing the clinic had since paid the costs of his treatment, plus interest, as a result of a small claims court ruling.

Dr Sahu, of Walthamstow, East London, denies 11 charges amounting to serious professional misconduct, arising from his treatment of patients at the clinic between July 2000 and June 2001.

The rise and rise of Viagra has created a 1.5bn worldwide market in treating impotence pills.

Now rivals are fighting for a share of the spoils and it is becoming a recreational drug of choice for some in the party generation.

Last week, Pfizer's chief executive Henry McKinnell warned that Chinese made diet for erectile dysfunction
posed a threat to its business and urged the country's authorities to clamp down on the copycats.

New research

Pfizer, the world's biggest pharmaceutical company, stumbled on the drug by accident at their research labs in Sandwich, Kent.

In the late 1980s, they had been developing a new treatment for angina, but noticed a strange side-effect in trials - increased erections among volunteers.

The effect on their sex lives was so marked that once the angina trails were over the volunteers wanted to keep on taking the medication.

Pfizer decided to commission some new research.

In 1989 they approached Clive Gingell, one of Britain's top Urological Surgeons, based in Bristol.

He had spent his whole career trying to treat and improve the lives of thousands of men suffering from impotence.

In those days, commonly used treatments included the fitting of implants directly into the penis, a vacuum pump and self injection.

Most sufferers were thoroughly put off and consigned themselves to a life without sex.

Viagra arrives

Mr Gingell ran a new series of trials, and the results impressed him.

Pfizer chief executive McKinnell says copycats pose a threat

He describes Viagra as “a wonder drug”.

“The thought of having a pill that would cure impotence was amazing to me,” he says.

“I never thought I would see it in my lifetime.”

“There has been a kind of Holy Grail idea associated with curing impotence,” Pfizer's Mariann Caprino tells the Money Programme.

“And here it was in a little blue pill.”

Colossal market

When Viagra was launched in 1998, Pfizer's share price doubled. It was apparent that there was a huge previously untapped market out there.

Doctors claim that half of all men over 40 become impotent at some point in their lives.

That is more than 150 million worldwide, with two million sufferers in Britain alone, so the potential market for drugs like Viagra is colossal.

Overnight Viagra made Pfizer famous. “We discovered the mass production of penicillin, yet it was Viagra that put Pfizer on the map,” says Ms Caprino.

Embarrassing subject

Atenolol impotence, despite the highly successful launch, the company faced a huge potential problem in selling Viagra.

Men were simply not willing to talk about impotence, they were ashamed.

If they were not prepared to discuss their impotence, how could they be persuaded to ask their doctor for a prescription?

Ray Reynolds, who suffered from impotence for 30 years, had simply given up hope of ever being able to have sex again.

“I thought well, I'll just put it to one side and remain a eunuch for the rest of my life,” he says.

Celebrity endorsement

To overcome the problem, Pfizer came up with a series of marketing ploys.

Pfizer sponsors NASCAR, America's top spectator sport

Firstly, they asked the Vatican, and other world religious leaders, for their blessing. This headed off possible moral and religious objections.

Secondly, they employed big name celebrities to encourage men to seek treatment for impotence.

Pele, the legendary footballer, headed a men's health campaign about erection problems, and 75 year old former US Presidential candidate Bob Dole went public for Pfizer about his own impotence problem.

American men rushed to their doctors.

Leon Steinberg, an 84-year-old impotence sufferer living in a retirement community in Florida, was impressed by Mr Dole's courage in coming forward.

“When I saw it on TV, I admired him for it,” he says.

“You might say he was my idol.”

Withdrawal of campaign

Pfizer decided not to use the term “impotence” in the advertisements, instead replacing it with a more bland technical term “erectile dysfunction”.

Pfizer's Mike Suesserman says the new term “allowed us to make the condition a household name”.

Pfizer reasoned that few men may admit to impotence, which employs a complete loss of ability, but a lot more may own up to erectile dysfunction, which suggests a much broader range of symptoms.

But Pfizer's aggressive marketing campaign has recently run into trouble.

A recent television advertisement has been criticized in the United States for suggesting that Viagra might be better and more effective for patients than the clinical experience suggests.

The Food and Drug Administration ordered its withdrawal.

Efficient sex

There are potential problems, too, in the increasing use of Viagra as a recreational drug.

Half of all men over 40 become impotent at some point

“For a lot of gay people it is just a normal way of life,” says Gary Mercado, who runs the Elysium Resort, the largest gay hotel in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

When Viagra is taken with amphetamines, “you forget about having protective sex, so there are huge capabilities of dysfunction erectile fact all sorts of sexual diseases”, he says.

Pfizer says that a very small percentage of people abuse Viagra, but accepts there is great potential in developing the market for sexual pharmaceuticals.

Meika Loe, author of the book The Rise of Viagra, agrees: “In the Viagra era, sexuality is subject to the cult of efficiency. It's become almost McDonald's-ised. Serve it up fast and hot.”

The Money Programme: Viagra: The Hard Sell was broadcast at 2200 GMT on Wednesday, 9 February on BBC Two .

NEW YORK (AP) - A New York City man has sued the maker of the health drink Boost Plus, claiming the vitamin-enriched beverage gave him an erection that would not subside and forced him to seek hospital treatment.

The lawsuit filed by Christopher Woods, of Manhattan, said he bought the nutrition beverage, which is made by the Swiss-based Novartis dysfunction female male sexual company, at a drugstore June 5, 2004.

Novartis's Boost Plus website describes the drink as “a great tasting, high-calorie, nutritionally complete oral alternative impotence treatment for people who require extra energy and protein in a limited volume,” in vanilla, chocolate and impotence and man health.

Woods' court papers said he woke up the next morning “with an erection that would not subside” and sought treatment for the condition, called severe priapism. They said Woods, 29, had surgery that day for dealing with impotence of a Winter shunt, which moves blood from one area to another.

The lawsuit, filed late Monday, said Woods had problems that days later required a hospital visit and penile artery embolization, a way of closing blood vessels. Closing off some blood flow prevents engorgement of the penis with blood and lessens the likelihood of an erection.

Woods' lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, names Novartis Consumer Health Inc. as a defendant. A ca condition erectile dysfunction
for the company, Brandi Robinson, said Tuesday the company was aware of the lawsuit but did not comment on pending litigation.

Woods' lawyer did not return telephone calls for comment Tuesday.