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Show Weekly gpeenaill ira FDA may let drug companies sell prescription drugs ike soap Washington Headache remedies and cold tablets are advertised every day on television. Rival commercials insist their product is the strongest medication you can buy without a doctor's doc-tor's prescription. If your ailment isn't cured by an over-the-counter pill, you can always count on your doctor for a better remedy. That's the American way - but it's going to change. The Food and Drug Administration is thinking of letting the drug companies advertise prescription pre-scription drugs the way they do over-the-counter products. The pharmaceutical pharma-ceutical industry is all for the idea, but consumer groups and doctors - and even some officials in the Food and Drug Administration - are horrified. ' If the big drug companies can advertise adver-tise their prescription medications like breakfast food or beer, patients may insist that their doctors prescribe the remedies that have the catchiest commercials. If the doctor doesn't think the product is appropriate, the patient may end up shopping around for the "right" physician. In addition, a drug company that spends millions of dollars advertising its prescription drugs will have to add the advertising costs onto the price of the prescription. This means that prescription drugs will cost even more than they already do. All of this has been spelled out in an internal Food and Drug Administration Ad-ministration memorandum that we've seen. The document also points out that the government knows the public doesn't think much of the idea that prescription drugs should be advertised. adver-tised. The Food and Drug Administration ran an extensive survey of the general public this year and found that 60 percent per-cent of those questioned thought it was a bad idea. Twenty percent of the. respondents were willing to let the drug companies advertise prescription drugs only if the government kept strict control over the ads. Even with all the evidence that the advertising of prescription drugs would be costly, dangerous and unpopular, un-popular, the Food and Drug Administration Ad-ministration is leaning toward permitting permit-ting the drug industry to launch its media campaign. Cruel War: Nicaragua is in turmoil, . with several factions attempting to wrest control from the left-wing San-dinista San-dinista government. How these anti-communist anti-communist factions treat civilians and prisoners indicates how their leaders might rule the country should they emerge victorious. Here's a rundown: The Sandinistas make use of intelligence in-telligence agents who track down dissidents and drag them out of their homes in the middle of the night. Many are sent directly to prison; others are forced to make public confessions. The CIA-backed FDN relies on a civilian spy network which forces citizens to inform on their countrymen. The civilian spies are thus caught in the middle: If they are discovered informing in-forming for one side, the other will kill them. The Misura group of Miskito Indian In-dian rebels attempts to recruit prisoners to its cause. If an enemy soldier declines to switch sides, he is summarily executed. -Rebel leader Eden Pastora "Commander Zero" - is the only one who does not torture his prisoners. He thinks the practice is counter-productive, and he turns his prisoners over to the Costa Rican Red Cross. Meanwhile a major mutiny has occurred oc-curred in the Misura Indian group. Nearly half of the forces changed allegiance from one leader to another. The renegades were dissatisfied with the alliance forged by their leader, Steadman Fagoth, with the largest group, the FDN. The mutiny was quelled by Honduran troops, and the leaders were placed under arrest. In the meantime, the United States has recruited three new allies in the anti-Sandinista battle. Brazilian officers of-ficers are teaching the rebels guerrilla techniques; Venezuela is providing funds; and Israel is providing arms, training and money. A fourth country, Colombia, rejected the CIA's request for help in toppling the Sandinistas. Third-World Rift: According to our intelligence sources, there's been a strange split between two of the Third World's most notorious leaders Libya's Muammar Qaddafi and Cuba's Fidel Castro. They differ over strategy toward El Salvador. Qaddafi is urging leftist guerrillas in El Salvador to wage a long, drawn-out war of attrition with a military victory as the ultimate goal. Castro, on the other hand, is more pragmatic. He favors negotiations to end the fighting. Some intelligence analysts say this explains why a shipment of arms sent by Qaddafi to Salvadoran rebels last April went by way of Brazil instead of Cuba. Some experts even believe Castro may have tipped off the Brazilian government about the shipment. ship-ment. Brazilian authorities seized the planes and created a major embarrassment em-barrassment for Qaddafi. Headlines and Footnotes: The Arab states of Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates fear that Palestinian immigrants will foment terrorism. Kuwait has gone so far as to contract for a computer system that will spot Palestinians who attempt to settle there. Copyright, 1983, United Feature Syndicate, Inc. |