Who needs Vi*g*a when you live in Asia? Pharmaceutical companies and Pfizer will say many people do. After all the aforesaid chemical concoction has been a run-away best seller particularly in East Asia where it is more affordable and there is a culture of - well let me say mildly - a perceived correlation between sexual potency and political, business and social influence - (almost exclusively amongst the male of the species). Thai pollies, like many worldwide, seem to crave the company of partners as young, beautiful and slim as they are old, ugly and fat. And invariably sometimes nature is not as generous as their wallet..

It's evidence of the potency of global brands and Western brands that Pfizer must have pulled the market share rug from underneath the noses of purveyors of Chinese and other Asian herbal cures and remedies. I remember in my early days wandering through Singapore that (perchance) ;) I stumbled upon red light districts in Little India and near the old Malaysian railway station.

Apart from the curious shadowy remembrances of elderly plump Chinese matrons dressed in far-too-tight black dresses loitering around entrances to even older Chinese shop-houses with nothing but a pinkish light illuminating the staircase to promised pleasures, the most interesting memory is that of the street hawkers outside. They would place a white sheet on the ground and display a variety of bottled and packaged beverages, roots, seeds and herb-y looking things all guaranteed to add value to the experience, or just as likely, reduce the likelihood of the painful after-effects. The white sheet also doubled as an aid to quickly wrapping up their wares as the cockatoo at the corner screeched a warning of an impending visit from the local constabulary.

In later visits to China, Hong Kong, Korea and Japan, the same remedies were seen hawked (with a savvier focus on packaging and branding) from up market pharmacies in shopping centres in CBD's to rural markets with varying degrees of surreptitiousness. Rhino horns, and testicles of a variety of unfortunate mammals as well as both small and big fishies are the best known in Chinese folk-lore for such qualities. Demand is so large it causes concern among conservationists.

One memory is clear of sitting down to breakfast on a sunny morning at a Chinese cafe in Cirebon, a coastal city a few hours drive from Jakarta. Noticing a massive array of black bottles displayed on a special counter, I enquired from my host what they were. Smilingly, he offered that they were all different sorts of boom-boom enhancers.

All of course, which leads me to report on my latest find on the Web while searching for information on herbal supplements. Like Pfizer's offering, the ingredients of this (new to me) medicine owes little to Chinese folklore, but is offered as a body-building supplement -

Yes, you can pick up a packet of Horny Goat Weed now from any good muscle-building web shop. I would advise the URL's but the thought of hundreds of international and Asian politicians rushing for their mouse at the same time is a vision far too horrid to contemplate.

All I can say to Pfizer is now is the time to protect your market share.. your competitive disadvantage is showing...