Posted on 07/21/2004 7:13:15 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
CAIRNS, Australia, (AFP) - A strong cocktail of toxins from the potentially deadly irukandji jellyfish may hold a remedy for impotent men, according to an Australian researcher.
James Cook University academic Lisa-Ann Gershwin said she believes a sting from an irukandji tentacle, which causes excruiating pain, anxiety, paralysis and a potentially fatal rise in blood pressure, also causes prolonged erections in male victims.
"This is a bizarre extra symptom of irukandji syndrome in addition to the really dreadful life-threatening symptoms the syndrome gives," Gershwin said.
At least two people are known to have died from irukandji stings and hundreds of others have been treated in hospital.
Gershwin said she believes she has identified the particular species of irukandji responsible, after a local doctor, Peter Fenner, noticed the symptom in male patients.
She said isolating the cause of the erections from the toxins carried by the jellyfish could lead to a remedy for male impotency.
But the species concerned is extremely rare and had so far only been found around the Whitsunday Islands off the Queensland coast of north-eastern Australia.
"If we can get this other species into culture, certainly it would be able to supply the number of specimens that would be necessary to do that kind of research, to actually look at an impotency medication."
However, it has not yet reached the stage where it would be feasible for a pharmaceutical company to begin work on it, she said.
On a side note, I heard Viagra sales are down. :-\
Once ya get past these symptoms.. Wow!!!
"which causes excruiating pain, anxiety, paralysis and a potentially fatal rise in blood pressure, also causes prolonged erections in male victims."
Hell, except for that part about erections, Hillary does all of that to me.
I'm still laughing.
Hitlary does it all for me Bump :-)
Here comes the spam ...
Screaming, excruciating death is only a side effect.
Now I am gagging.
that's a side effect too. violent nausea :-o
but imagine the new advertising pitches from the local aquarium...
Yeah, that's more what I was feeling.
All these years I thought BJ Clinton was a sex pervert and it turns out he just had a jellyfish in his pants.
Lemme guess: open caskets?
Sadly, in real life I have often been turned on by what I later found out were just jellyfish.
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