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Show Utah Medics Under Fire, AMA Claims I CHICAGO. Oct ( Iff Trustees of the American Medical Assa. said Thurfcday that ths A M A and i 10 state knd bounty medical so-. so-. cisties a ret being Investigstsd by , ths antitrust division of the jus-. jus-. tics department One of the groups under federal - investigation is ths Utah Bute Medical Assn., AMA said. William C. Dixon, west eoast ' head of the antitrust division, pro- vtded first data lie of ths govsra-1 govsra-1 meat's elms. Lss Aageles Cited He told reporters la Los Angeles that ths department Is looking Into ths Los Angeles County Medical Aasn.'s relationships with hospitals. hos-pitals. He said ths FBI also Is Inquiring Inquir-ing into charges of discrimination against doctors who participate in medical service groups, and is interested in-terested in clairas that nonmetn-bers nonmetn-bers of the association have been barred from hospitals and hospital services through the American Medical Assn.'s system of accrediting accred-iting hospitals. "In soma Instances wa are la-formed la-formed ths medical association has refused to place hospitals on ths Americaa Medical Aasn. approved list unless all doctors on the staff belong to ths association," bs said. "In other Instances American Medical Aasn. members who are directors of hospitals hava ruled that only American Medical Assa. doctors can use the hospitals' faculties. Trastees Protest "We srs also inquiring Into ths affect of this system upon allocation alloca-tion of public funds to hospitals, to determine whether or not they have been denied grants by federal and other agencies." In Chicago ths AMA board of trustees issued a atatsment "pro-tasting "pro-tasting ths ass of the polios arm of ths government la a campaign tothseredit Americaa medicine and terrorize physicians into abandoning abandon-ing their opposition to compulsory health Insurance." The board of trustees Issued a statement "protesting ths use of the polios arm of tha government in a campaign to discredit American Ameri-can medicine and terrorize physicians physi-cians into abandoning their opposition op-position to compulsory health insurance." in-surance." The board said that on Feb. 10 the board roam of the trustees la Chicago wss broken Into and records of the board were thoroughly thoro-ughly searched. Dr. George F. Lull, secretary-manager secretary-manager of the AMA, said "no accusations are made against tha department of justice," But he called tha incident one of "real significance in tha chronology chron-ology of events sines tha AMA decided de-cided to make a nation-wide campaign cam-paign against compulsory health Insurance." Lull said four FBI agents, presently are engaged m searching search-ing the AMA records hi tha association's Chicago headquar-tera. headquar-tera. They have asked for all records I See Page Ceiasaa 1 Utah Medics Under Fire, Physicians' Group Says department, and had bean given full access to association record. Mr. Tibbala added the FBI agent told him ha would return to examine ex-amine the record "after ha received re-ceived instructions from ' Wash- ' ington telling him what to look 1 for." "We informed the justice department de-partment that our record would be available for inspection at any time, since we have nothing to cover up," said Mr. Tibbala. "While wa are willing to accede to the justice department's request, re-quest, I personally feel the investigations in-vestigations are baseless and Improper," Im-proper," he added. . He quoted the department's letter let-ter requesting examination of association as-sociation records aa saying that the action waa being taken "in connection with investigations of alleged violations of the' federal antitrust laws." Costiaued from Page One dating back to 1938 and copies of alt speeches made by A M A officials. The trustees called a special news conference to announce the I investigation. Presiding were Dr. Lull and Dr. Ernest Irons, president presi-dent of the A M A. They exhibited photostatic copies of a police department complaint com-plaint on the ransacking of A M A records in February. They also had photostatic copies of a notice from Herbert A. Berg-son, assistant assist-ant U. 8. attorney general, dated Aug. 25 and asking that the files be laid open to the FBI for Investigation. In-vestigation. Societies which the association associa-tion said are under investigation are the A MA: The New York Medical society; the Utah Bute Medical Assn.;- the Washington EUte Medical society; the Arkansas Arkan-sas Medicsl society; the Oklahoma State Medical Assn.; the Michigan Michi-gan Medical service; the Arkansas Blue Cross-Blue Shield plan; Los Angeles County (Cel.) Medical society; the Beckman County (Okla) Medical society; the Wayne County (Mich.) Medical society; the Harris County (Tex) Medical society; the King County (Wash.) Medical society, and the New York County, Nassau County, and Queens County (N. Y.) Medical Medi-cal societies. PVirlirr Ihis and lsst ysas sse ral other medical associations were visited by antitrust Investigators, Investi-gators, the trustees said, |