The AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) has charged the pharmaceutical company Pfizer with “promoting Viagra as a party drug … leading to more infections with sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV,” according to its president Michael Weinstein.

AHF filed suit in a Los Angeles court on Jan. 22 to force the company to end those ads, begin an education campaign on the responsible use of Viagra, and pay an unspecified sum to the organization to help care for people infected with HIV.

“Pfizer is advertising Viagra for mild erectile dysfunction or to improve your sex life, not for its approved use by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA),” Weinstein asserted. “Viagra was not approved for performance anxiety.”

“Pfizer does not promote Viagra for recreational use,” the company said in a written statement, “which is why we encourage men with erectile dysfunction to see their doctor for a proper diagnosis and to discuss symptoms, treatment options and safe sexual practices.”

“We estimate that a majority of new infections in this country are related to the use of crystal meth, and the majority of crystal meth users are also using Viagra,” Weinstein said. He called AHF “a victim of Pfizer’s irresponsibility.”

Ronald Stall questioned that estimate. The expert in HIV epidemiology at the University of Pittsburgh said, “I’m not even sure you could make that claim for gay men.” More than half of new infections are believed to be through heterosexual transmission, he added.

When pressed to back up his assertion with data, Weinstein mentioned recently speaking with a group of African-American youth who said crystal meth “use is rampant” within their community.

Jeffrey D. Klausner, director of STD prevention and control services for the city of San Francisco, said he has seen an association, although not necessarily a causation, between use of crystal meth, Viagra and increased rates of sexually transmitted diseases in San Francisco. He said he has tried unsuccessfully to get the FDA to rein in advertising for the product.

However, a conference on erectile dysfunction drugs, supported by the National Institutes of Health, found little evidence to back up Klausner’s position.

Stall also attended that conference. He said “the jury is still out” on evidence to back up Klausner’s claims.

The conference report was published last November in the Journal of Sexual Health. Editor Irwin Goldstein wrote, “Health care providers should be reminded that individuals infected with HIV frequently have erectile dysfunction from their disease or from pharmacologic agents commonly used in its treatment.”

Klausner said he is deeply troubled by what he considers to be the continued misleading and potentially off-label, direct-to-consumer marketing practices of Viagra. He has tried to work with the FDA in restricting advertising for HIV medicines and for Viagra.

“Why the FDA has not acted on this issue … is not clear to me,” he said.

“We have gotten what we consider very lame responses from the FDA,” said Weinstein. “The FDA under this administration comes close to being a wholly owned subsidiary of the pharmaceutical industry.”

Pfizer spokesperson Shreya Prudlo said that AHF recently approached the Pfizer marketing team “with a multi-million dollar funding request for a crystal meth educational program.” Pfizer did not comment on the merits of the proposal, but asked that AHF follow standard protocol and submit it through the grants committee, an independent group within the company.

“To date, our grants committee has not received a grant proposal from Mr. Weinstein regarding this initiative,” Prudlo said.

San Francisco AIDS activist Michael Petrelis thought he sensed another motive behind the AHF lawsuit.

“Considering that Pfizer is already responsibly including the message that Viagra does not stop HIV or other STDs in their bus-shelter ads and on the package insert, which also stresses the need for safer sex, I suspect that the AIDS Healthcare Foundation is campaigning against the company in order to squeeze an educational grant out of them.”

Was it just a coincidence that the AHF news conference was scheduled just three hours before Pfizer began a scheduled briefing of industry analysts? Few people think that was the case.

“I should have known that the petty, small-minded M.W. [Weinstein] wouldn’t give up on this [lawsuit],” said New York and L.A. AIDS activist Michael Barr in an e-mail. “And all because Pfizer said ‘no’ when he approached them for funding.”

Petrelis added, “AHF’s unnecessary jihad on Pfizer contributes significantly to demonizing and stigmatizing gay men living with AIDS.”