But while Viagra is poised to go wider than ever before, the inside story of its launch is not widely known. How did a group of oddball underdogs in America’s most conservative pharmaceutical conglomerate, Pfizer, bring it into existence? At the time, the idea of selling Viagra was considered crazy at best and immoral at worst.

In fact, it’s a miracle that it ever came to be at all. In addition to the people within Pfizer who were in an uproar over the “dick pill,” 4 major groups began rallying against it before its launch: the Catholic church (which thought it was immoral), medical experts (who insisted patients would be too embarrassed to ask for the pill), business execs (who thought it would make Pfizer a laughingstock), and legislators (who lobbied against the pill for the same reason as the church).

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