I'm thinking that as a headline writer, what topic offers a better opportunity for bad puns and other word play than a story about anti-impotence drug sales not meeting expectations in the U.S.?

As to why, here's an excerpt from the NYT story:

Seven years after Pfizer made Viagra a cultural touchstone and commercial blockbuster, the market for impotence medicines appears to have fallen well short of what was once predicted.

Heavy advertising to consumers, totaling more than $400 million in 2004, has made Viagra and its newer competitors, Cialis and Levitra, among the best-known drug brands in the United States, and their combined global sales reached about $2.5 billion last year. But the number of new prescriptions for the drugs has fallen steadily this year. Doctors wrote about 10 percent fewer new prescriptions in October than they did in October of 2004.

Some of the decline is a result of reports, disputed by some specialists, that linked the drugs to a rare form of blindness, say urologists who specialize in treating impotence. But a more fundamental factor is also hurting sales, these doctors say: many impotent men have chosen not to take the drugs, even though the drugs work about 70 percent of the time and have relatively few side effects.

The drop in prescriptions comes as sales of other heavily marketed medicines, like antidepressants, are also stalling, and it may be another sign of the limits of consumer advertising to drive demand for drugs. In the late 1990's, drug makers used television advertising to introduce treatments for chronic conditions like arthritis and heartburn. But today, with many patients angry about drug prices and worried that companies are downplaying side effects, drug advertising seems to have lost some of its power.

As many as half of men over 40 have at least mild or occasional impotence, but Pfizer estimates that only about 15 percent of those men get prescriptions for Viagra, Cialis or Levitra in a given year. In the hopes of increasing that figure, Pfizer is about to begin two major new ad campaigns, one for Viagra and a more general one about erectile dysfunction, the company's preferred term for impotence.

"We think there's an opportunity to expand awareness and usage," said Greg Duncan, a senior vice president of United States marketing for Pfizer. Many men are still afraid to ask their doctors about Viagra, and Pfizer wants to remove any stigma still associated with erectile dysfunction, he said. Pfizer also plans to encourage younger men to take Viagra, Mr. Duncan said.

But Pfizer's new campaigns may not make much difference. Viagra is already among the world's best-known brands, the subject of millions of Web pages and at least a dozen books, including the humorous memoir "Diary of a Viagra Fiend."

Further, the stigma associated with impotence drugs has greatly lessened since Viagra was introduced, in part because of advertising featuring athletes like the baseball player Rafael Palmeiro.

While the drugs have helped millions, many impotent men have simply decided not to take medicine to improve their ability to have sex, said Dr. Abraham Morgentaler, associate clinical professor of urology at Harvard Medical School.

"The idea that every man with erectile dysfunction is going to want to take one of these pills - I think that's not accurate," Dr. Morgentaler said. "And I don't think there's anything wrong with that."