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Show The U.S. and IOU Official Seeks Ways To Reduce Drug Costs By William Steif Librium is an drug for which the patent expired 'two years ago. It is made by Roche Laboratories, part of a huge, multinational pharmaceutical company. Its chemical name is chlordiazepoxide generic anti-anxiet- v hcl. - Librium costs your pharmacist 5.3 rents for a capsule. Normal medical prescription for Librium is four daily, or 21.2 cents. Three other companies make the same drug and market it under the generic name. Their prices for four capsules of the same dosage run from 4.3 cents to 10.6 cents a fifth to a half the cost of Librium. Yet Librium has more than 95 percent of the U.S. market, says Tom Fulda of the Health Care Financing Administration. Fulda has spent the past year working on a booklet with which HCFA, an arm of the Health. Education and Welfare Department, hopes to hold down drug prices and so reduce the soaring costs of medical treatment. Drugs represent 10 percent of all U.S. medical costs. In 1976 their prices averaged 50 percent higher than in 1974, the U.S. Consumer Price Index - shows. The HCFA booklet, now in draft form and circulating among 500 health professionals, is entitled "Guide to Drug Prices." HCFA plans to send it to the nation's 350.000 physicians, to pharmacists and to consumers who ask for it by the end of the year. It's free. It is, in effect, the first free catalogue of comparative price information on prescription drugs and some drugs. It divides 196 of the most frequently like prescribed drugs, plus aspirin, into 16 therapeutic categories such as analgesics and In each category, the guide lists the generic and trade names of each drug, pain-kille- s. their manufacturers, average per-tabl- et price to pharmacists based on a 7 survey of 1,000 pharmacists, and total cost of normally recommended daily dosage. HCFA plans to mid-197- update the guide every six months Fulda says half the drugs on the IS market are "patent monopolies" the patents protect manufacturers from competition. But patents expire. That's what happened with Librium and that's what will happen in 1984 to another Roche product. Valium, the nation's biggest selling drug with $2D0 million in sales last year. The problem. Fulda says, is that "doctors have lots of information from drug companies but not price information." Pharmacists have lots of price information but not comparative price information. HCFA's guide fills the gap. The guide is "only a reference." Fulda says. He stresses that HEW does not intend to "abrogate, interfere or otherwise infringe" on medical judgments But Fulda thinks doctors "will start writing (prescriptions) more He says pharmacists generically.' "can cut their inventories" by using the guide. In addition to price comparisons. Fulda thinks the guide will enable doctors to make more economic price decisions in picking from among different drugs that perform similarly. Example: Eli Lilly's patented Keflex, costs 30.5 cents for a capsule. But another ampicillin, is often used the same way. Ten kinds of ampicillin are listed in the guide, ranging in price from six to 18.7 cents per capsule. HEW Secretary Joseph A. Califano says only 12 percent of prescriptions now sperify a drug's generic name. "If one of five physicians uses this guide to cut the cost of prescriptions by 10 percent," he says, "that would save consumers $120 million a year in prescription drug costs." (This weekly column provides information about federal services offered to individuals and groups. Queries are invited. We can't reply to each letter but will answer as many as possible. Write to "THE U.S. AND YOU," care of this newspaper). e, Form er PortlandrQfi - Cleveland Gilcrease. 1)RTLAND. Ore t I'Pl former head of Portland s major war on poverty agency, was indicted Wednesday on 20 counts of mail fraud involving his election as president of a national anti poverty lobbying organization financed with federal funds Gilcrease left his Portland position in June 1977 .o become president and executive director of the National Association for Community Development, a lobbying organization made up of oi finals of agencies The association was financed largely from federal funds full-tim- e ca aces gg of the National Cummurity Action Trust Fund and as a board member of the National Community Action Agency Executive Directors Association The General Accounting Office, the auditing agency of Congress, investigated NACD and made allegations of possible illegal chanelhng of federal funds to the NACD trust fund, extensive travel expenses submitted by Gilcrease without sufficient payroll irregularities and tax irregularities Gilcrease could not be immediately located for comment He is scheduled for arraignment on the charges in 1 S District Court in Portland Oct 1!) Penalty for conviction of mail fraud is up to five years in prison and $1,000 fine on each count So y Gilcrease resigned from the post in Washington. C, early this year Gilcrease is charged in the federal grand jury indictment with using the mails to manipulate a 1974-7election in which he was named president of the National Association for Community Development The indictment charges that Gilcrease directed his staff on the Portland Metropolitan Steering Committee to obtain names of individuals from the committee without their knowledge or consent and enroll them as members of the association Gilcrease was then executive director of the steering committee. The indictment charges that he instructed his staff to control the addresses of the new members so that association ballots would be mailed to steering committee office instead of the homes of the new members. Gilcrease then ordered staff members to mark the ballots "indicating Gilcrease as the choice for president of NACD," the indictment said. The indictment said several hundred fradulent ballots were mailed in the 1974 and 1975 elections. It said some of the persons named on the fradulent ballots were dead. Gilcrease won the elections and served as part-tim- e president of the association while continuing in the Portland post until 1977. Gilcrease moved to Portland in July 1968 from Clearfield, Utah, where he was director of a training program for medical aides and teachers. He headed Portland's Concentrated Employment Program until March 1969, when he was appointed executive director of the Portland Metropolitan Steering Committee, the agency which received and allocated most funds for federal programs. Two months after Gilcrease resigned the post to go to Washington an audit indicated the steering committee was $300,000 in debt and federal funds to it were cut off. 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"The Alaskan Arctic, supplies look the size of the new petroleum finds for big but the South Alaskan areas are a many months because it did not wish to disappointment and so far the excite the Mexican people about the Baltimore Canyon area of the Atlantic chances for a big bonanza and create is quite a disappointment," Lambert popular pressure for extremely rapid said. development of the oil reserves that He said Mexico's new reserves are might upset the nation's social strucmuch larger than at first suspected but ture. it is not yet possible to evaluate them A much more optimistic picture of accurately. "They probably are at least world petroleum supplies in years half as big as Saudi Arabia's and could Lambert's is presented in ahead than be bigger," Lambert said, "but the "Window on Oil" by Bernardo F. Gros-slinimportant thing is that they are not goa Washington geophysicist, who ing to become available rapidly has been a consultant to the World because the Mexicans don't want to Bank, the United Nations, the governmake them available." ment of Chile and Standard Oil Co. of Lambert's assessment was con- California. The study was published by firmed when a high official of Pemex, eminent Financial Times and London's d the Mexican sells for $110 a copy. petroleum company, appeared recently He believes anywhere between 1.35 with several other oil experts on public trillion and 4.8 trillion barrels of oil and television. He made it plain that Mexico would not go into any crash produc gas remain to be discovered. N Plaids, Solids, Views Contrast on Oil, Gas Reserves, Firm Head Says produce all (UPI) - Despite the tion program, that it not and gas itself and confirmed of new the NEW YORK j mm QUILTED tTl & UNQUILTED 45" frm 7fl OFF LBCDrp |
