"E.D.s"?

[Laurence Horn]

>>Heard a reference on the doctor show "Grey's Anatomy" to "E.D.s"
>>referring clearly in the context not to erectile dysfunction(s), but
>>to erectile dysfunction medications, e.g. Viagra, Cialis, Levitra.  I
>>have no idea if this is standard use, and for obvious reasons it's
>>hard to check on google.
>
>I haven't heard or seen it myself AFAIK.
>
>There are a lot of references to "erection drugs" on the Web, including
>some authoritative/respectable-looking ones. Possibly this is what is being
>abbreviated here?
>
>Alternatively I guess "ED" could act as an abbreviation for "ED
>medicine/drug" [in which "ED" = "erectile dysfunction"] [by analogy with
>(e.g.) "antihypertensive" for "antihypertensive medicine/drug"], although
>this doesn't seem entirely natural to me.
>
>-- Doug Wilson

I took it in the latter sense, which bothers me (if I may express my
normally recessive prescriptivist gene).  It always rankled me, on
both political and lexicographical grounds, when those opposed to the
Vietnam war were referred to as "anti-Vietnam protesters".  We were
very much pro-Vietnam, we complained, just against the war.  I'm sure
Pfizer feels the same way about its E.D. meds.

But maybe E.D.s was intended (by the doctor who supervises the
interns, known affectionately as The Nazi) on the former reading.

larry