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The following question was presented:

Nothing immediately coming to mind again, so it's time to dig into the top ten lists. This week I came across the following list of side effects to medicine. Which of the following side effects would you like least?

Results:

Inability to distinguish between blue and green, Uncontrollable bowel movements and oily spotting, Rectal bleeding; hepatitis and herpes and Uncontrollable sexual and gambling urges tied with 25% of the votes each from the following selection:

• Loss of smell (0%)
• Hallucinations (0%)
• Loss of fingerprints (seriously) (0%)
• Inability to distinguish between blue and green (25%)
• Developing fully functional mammory glands (0%)
• Uncontrollable bowel movements and oily spotting (25%)
• Erection lasting more than 3 hours (0%)
• Immediate (3rd degree) sunburn (0%)
• Rectal bleeding; hepatitis and herpes (25%)
• Uncontrollable sexual and gambling urges (25%)

Graphic of Results:

Analysis:

OK - so you're probably wondering how true these are and I'll honestly say that I haven't done any research into these - I just found them on a site. Here are the explanations:

Vasotec, used to treat congestive heart failure, can cause side effects that include a loss of senses, one of which being a loss of smell.

Chantix; Mirapex and Lariam used to quit smoking can cause hallucinations.

Xeloda, used to treat several types of cancer, can cause chronic inflammation of the palms or soles of feet. This can cause bleeding and ulcers, but the oddity is that it can cause your fingerprints to disappear.

Viagra, used for erectile dysfunction (as if you didn't know that one), can cause the user to see everything with a blue tint having the effect of not being able to distinguish between green and blue.

Propecia, used for hair loss, can cause the patient to develop fully functioning mammary glands.

Alli, used for weight loss, can cause uncontrollable bowel movements and oily spotting. I'm not 100% sure what oily spotting is, but you probably don't want to fart if you have this side effect as I believe you're going to get through a few pairs of underpants if you do. The interesting thing about this one is to reduce this side effect, you need to cut fatty food out of your diet. One assumes that a diet pill that causes you to cut out fatty food for fear of shitting yourself is probably quite effective.

Whilst we all know that Viagra can cause erections that last more than three hours, so can Zoloft which is used as an anti-depressant. Must be quite odd being depressed with a raging boner.

Levaquin, used to treat bacterial infections can make you ultra sensitive to sunlight that can give you very bad sunburn (like 3rd degree burns).

Accutane, used to treat acne, has a long list of possible side effects including Rectal bleeding, hirsutism (an overabundance of rapidly-growing hair), psychosis, crying spells (and general bouts of depression), Hepatitis, herpes (possibly), and bone-fractures.

Requip, used to treat restless leg syndrome, can cause unusual and uncommon urges including sexual and gambling.

An interesting spread of votes across the side effects with no single one being feared as the worst. Guess the whole concept of side effects is pretty worrying.