- Exposing the alleged scam by IHRB and Sam Cohen - http://ihrb-story.com -

Erections? Never again!

Mr Sam Cohen of IHRB did not tell me that his hair regrowth treatment could lead to NEVER EVER being able to have another erection. He wanted me to take Finasteride. The approved dosage for Propecia (even though he wanted me to take the non-approved Proscar) is 1 mg. And even at one milligram, Finasteride has serious potential side effects, including not being able to ever have another erection, ever! Finasteride has helped many people, with great success. However, it does have a small chance of this serious side-effect which Mr Cohen never told me about.

The issue is so serious, that the manufacturer Merck Sharp & Dohme in Europe says that even after the patient has stopped taking 1 mg Finasteride (called Propecia), the patient could experience ‘…persistence of erectile dysfunction after discontinuation of treatment…’. After scientific studies concluded in 2008 at the Medical Products Agency of Sweden (whose decision speaks for all of Europe) [1], it was forced upon Merck Sharp & Dohme [2] to make that ghastly warning inside each packet of Proscar and Propecia. Click here to go to the page where you can download the Word document. It is called ‘Propecia film-coated tablet ENG’ [3].

Merck Sharp & Dohme uses the word ‘persistence’. In plain English, the side-effect warning means that even after a patient stops taking Finasteride, some patients will have on-going problems with erections — the affected patient can’t get an erection even after stopping the drug. There were other warnings (such as breast cancer in men), which I cover in this other article [4].

There is now a website [5] that is gathering information for a possible class-action for Canadian residents.

There are two aspects of this revelation. 1) The 1997 FDA study into Finasteride found that ‘erectile dysfunction’ was a potential side effect, so Mr Cohen would have known about this. 2) The 2008 Swedish study found that persistent erectile dynsfunctoin was now proved in some men, resulting in some men not being able to have an erection even many years after stopping. Those who had stopped taking the drug many years ago, still suffer. Some men had lost hope, and committed suicide. Doctors have not been able to find a solution.

Doctor Dr John Crisler had this to say: ‘I have had so many patients come to me, where that medication has destroyed their life. There’s a Yahoo forum for the Finasteride sufferers, and there have been several suicides on that forum. For some reason, some men have systems that are all set to get broken, and they take Finasertide even for as short as a week and it destroys their life. They become depressed, weak, impotent… the problem is, when they go off the drug, their symptoms remain. We don’t know why… These guys are seriously screwed-up after taking that drug. I have never prescribed it and never will.’

You can watch the video of Dr Crisler’s lecture on this subject. His opening statement is filled with medical terms at high speed, which seems indecipherable.

The forum to which Dr Crisler is referring, can be found if you click here [6]. The main site is called Propecia Help, found here [7].

As we can see below, the forum already has over 23,000 posts on 3246 topics by 1367 affected members who are traumatised by their erectile dysfunction as a result of using Finasteride.

Here is a video of a news report wherein a former user of Finasteride, Mr Nicholas O’Neill, speaking in English, says that his penis became nothing more than a piece of skin. By way of explaining this to the women readers, think of your ear lobe. When was the last time you felt that it was there? It is not a piece of the body that has much interaction with you on a daily basis. In the video below, Mr O’Neill was explaining that his penis was similar in this regard; a piece of flesh that has no interaction. Our female readers might now like to clench their fist hard and observe the many feelings, tension, and sensitivity and interaction with the fist and your awareness of it. A virile man would have similar tension with his penis, except that the muscular tension is pleasurable. So in this analogy, if you were to clench your fist and feel absolutely nothing, just like you now have no direct feeling with your earlobe, you would understand how frustrating this would be for a man, especially when the man is trying to make love. There would be no erection, no feelings, no sensation, no pleasure, and no performance. Utter frustration. Perhaps never to experience another orgasm.

Mr Sam Cohen of IHRB does not realise that if a man comes to him to regrow hair, then it is more than likely that the man also cares about his virility and sexual performance. Alas, no such warning is made. Finasteride is so much a part of Mr Cohen’s treatment, along with other dangerous non-approved inappropriate drugs, that he even sells it. Below is a section from his price list. He sell this product. He encourages its usage. He gives people letters to give their doctor to prescribe it. So he takes the prescription, fills it, and sells the medication. Goodness knows how many laws and rules he would be breaking in the process, given that he has no qualifications or licenses whatsoever. I guess he thinks that he is clever because anything that might go wrong will be blamed on the doctor, as he tried to blame my doctors, who had nothing to do with any of the treatment. But he tried his luck anyway, and lied to the Department of Fair Trading [8].


Mr Cohen is not authorised to be handling medications. What is he doing here by selling Proscar? Who is making the profit? Would this not prove that Mr Cohen is in the turbulent end of the deep ocean? How would he explain all this to the authorities?

THE STATEMENT FROM MERCK SHARP & DOHME

I wrote to the Australia office of MSD and this was their response. I appreciated their professional and speedy communication. Now you have the Australian position below, as well as the European position above.

I am pleased to provide you with a response to your enquiry regarding PROPECIA and erectile dysfunction.

In Australia, ‘difficulty in achieving an erection’ is listed as a side effect in the PROPECIA consumer medicine information, which is attached for your reference.

MSD has complied with all local regulatory requirements in Australia. Regulators in various countries have different regulatory requirements and, as a result, there might be slight differences in product labeling.

Post-marketing adverse events are events reported to the company voluntarily by patients and health care professionals from a population of an uncertain size. Because of this, it is generally not possible to reliably establish a frequency for these events.

While there have been post-marketing reports of erectile dysfunction which persisted after discontinuation of PROPECIA, a causal relationship of the persistence of erectile dysfunction after discontinuation of PROPECIA has not been established. The fact that an adverse event has been reported with a medicine does not mean that a causal relationship has been established between the event and the medicine. In general, a post-marketing adverse event may be caused by underlying disease, genetic condition, the medication, concomitant medications or background event that may occur coincidentally in any population.

Patients should talk to their doctor if they have any questions.

I hope this helps. Please let me know if you have any further queries.