From the kill 2 birds with one stone department...The Straits Times reports Side effects slow progress in fighting fat.

AFTER decades of hunting for the perfect diet pill, scientists thought they might have found a family of chemicals that could become a new generation of powerful weight-loss drugs.

Mice and rats given the drugs, which act on the brain, dramatically reduced their food intake while seeming to suffer no ill effects. Several drug companies were so encouraged that they had begun testing the compounds, called melanocortin 4 receptor agonists, in people.

But researchers conducting those trials began to report an unexpected side effect: Men given the medicines experienced prolonged, unwanted and sometimes uncomfortable erections.

In a rare show of blindness to the marketing possibilities and income potential, the pharmaceutical company viewed this side effect as a setback. I can already here the internet version of some slogans for this new drug...