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Thursday, February 8, 2001 Medtronic surprised by report of sexual benefit from one of its devices Terry Fiedler / Star Tribune Medtronic Inc. soon will get Food Drug and Administration approval to sell a device that uses electrical impulses to block the debilitating symptoms associated with advanced Parkinson's disease. The news promises a major advance for thousands of people who suffer from the disease and another lucrative market for Fridley-based Medtronic. But on Wednesday the company's communications staff was scrambling to answer press questions from around the world about another, unsanctioned use of the company's electrical stimulation technology -- as a generator of orgasms. One Medtronic public relations person said the company received calls from the Associated Press, Dow Jones and Reuters, among other news organizations. Medtronic officials first learned of the claims Wednesday in an issue of a British magazine called the New Scientist. In it, Dr. Stuart Meloy, a North Carolina pain specialist, said he was implanting a Medtronic electrical stimulation device into a woman's back to help alleviate chronic pain -- a procedure conducted under local anesthesia -- when he made a discovery. While searching for the best place in the patient's spine to plant the electrode, he found that electrical impulses in one area near the spine elicited another, unintended result -- an orgasm. In an interview with Reuters, Meloy said the patient told him, "You're going to have to teach my husband how to do that." Meloy also said in the interview that he has anecdotal evidence that the stimulation can produce orgasms in men and women. "Once you get past the giggles and smirks, as far as orgasmic dysfunction goes, it is a very real problem." Medtronic officials said that they were unfamiliar with Meloy's procedures or his goals and that the company had not conducted clinical research in this area. Meloy has asked for an audience with the company to talk about his discovery, but the company has not yet responded. Medtronic electrical stimulation systems usually consist of a small battery placed just under the skin in the abdomen. A lead runs from battery to an electrode implanted in the lower back. Electrical impulses are used to treat everything from chronic pain to tremors to incontinence. But those uses aren't likely to be mentioned in the excerpt from the New Scientist expected to appear today in the racy London tabloid The Sun. Terry Fiedler can be contacted at [log in to unmask] © Copyright 2001 Star Tribune. All rights reserved. http://www2.startribune.com/stOnLine/cgi-bin/article?thisStory=83516870 ******************