Men these days have plenty of options available to us if we sometimes find it difficult to rise to the occasion. Gone are the days of hoping for the best or merely suffering in silence - now we have prescription medicines, herbal remedies, and (irritatingly) tens of thousands of spammers flooding our inboxes with offers of 'generic' this and generic that.

Because of Pfizer's invention (or discovery), men all over the world now have a relatively safe and effective solution to impotence. Unfortunately, several analogues of the compound are produced by industrial chemists all around the world and are marketed as generic substitutes. Doubtless some of these analogues are effective and safe, but many others are mixed, diluted or otherwise 'cut' with chemicals that may be harmful to your health.

At the same time, herbal erection pills have proliferated and become more popular in part because of Pfizer's discovery. Although herbal erection pills have been around for some time (and the herbs they contain often used for centuries) it is only since the discovery of a pharmaceutical erection pill that alternative medicinal options have become popular, mostly because of a greater public awareness of male sexual problems.

It is commonly (though mistakenly) thought that the recent rise in popularity of herbal supplements in general is due to public misgivings about pharmaceutical companies and the way that they operate and exercise their considerable power and wealth, particularly in developing countries. While there is no doubt that some of these companies' methods warrant a raised eyebrow (at the very least), the real reason for the expansion of the natural health industry is that herbal remedies can be tested just like any pharmaceutical drug.

As a result, many popular folk myths about the benefits of certain herbs have been exploded, but on the flip side, many other herbs and their extracts have shown great promise in the treatment of common conditions, and the potential that plants offer us in the fight against currently incurable diseases is enormous.

To return to our main subject, the extracts used to produce herbal erection pills have also come under much scrutiny, and while some of them have been found wanting, others have been shown to be effective alternatives to pharmaceutical drugs.

Only a naf would take this as a sign that all herbal erection pills are therefore effective. Many are produced in labs that have even less regulation than those churning out generic chemical compounds, many others have been found (when tested by trading standards officials) to contain little or none of the supposed active ingredients, and of course these products are just as open to the aggressive marketing techniques so beloved of pedlars of generic drugs.

There are however several reputable providers and brands that use responsibly-sourced ingredients to produce high-quality herbal erection pills, and it seems almost certain that their market share will increase as consumer confidence in the efficacy of herbal supplements in general increases, hopefully to the detriment of those pushing generic rubbish manufactured in third-world labs.