The Brazilian military came in for stiff scrutiny after a lawmaker revealed it had purchased Viagra pills for the troops, drawing a flurry of jokes on social media. Congressman Elias Vaz said he had been informed through a freedom of information request that President Bolsonaro’s government had approved an order of 35,000 of the erectile-dysfunction pills for the armed forces.
“Our hospitals don’t have enough medication, and Bolsonaro and his crew are using public money to buy ‘the little blue pill’,” said the opposition lawmaker. The documents he received do not mention Viagra by name, but say the order was for sildenafil, the active ingredient in the drug. The defence ministry said the pills were in fact “to treat patients with pulmonary arterial hypertension”, or high blood pressure in the lungs, another use for sildenafil. That did little to stem social media users’ mirth.
