OFFBEAT MAIL

Dirty insinuations against a ranking official's involvement in the crash of the ill-fated twin engine that killed the top boss of the Philippines' Department of Interior and Local Governments is slowly coming into the spotlight. Media reports said that a day after the plane crash, DILG Undersecretary Rico Puno, along with some police officials, went to the condominium unit being rented by the late Secretary Jesse Robredo and his family, for reasons unknown to many people. They were asking why Puno dared to go to the late Robredo's condo unit a day after his death? Was he looking for some records related to an investigation being conducted by the late Robredo against him? It's good that the security people in that condominium building in Quezon City were not sleeping on their posts. Otherwise, the mere presence of a ranking official of the DILG, together with some police officials, may have intimidated them. Instead, they asked the visitors to write their names in th...

Men in New Zealand had been warned against self-prescribing drugs for erectile dysfunction and purchasing them from online sources to avoid serious health consequences. According to Dr Stephen Ruthven, President of the Urological Society of Australia and New Zealand, recent research indicates versions of Viagra found on the internet are fake and contain far less of the active ingredient than the real thing. In an analysis of pills from 22 different websites claiming to sell the drug, 77% of samples were counterfeit and contained only between 30% and 50% of the levels of active ingredient advertised on its label. The analysis was conducted by Irwin Goldstein, MD of San Diego Sexual Medicine and Editor in Chief of the Journal of Sexual Medicine, and reported at the World Meeting on Sexual Medicine. "Even more concerning, is the fact that many of these counterfeit drugs contain other undeclared ingredients such as gypsum which is found in fertiliser, commercial paint and prin...