🚀 go-pugleaf

Aides concede Gore made up medicine story

Politics/Elections Breaking News News
Source: Washington Times
Published: 9/19/00 Author: Dave Boyer and Sean Scully
Posted on 09/18/2000 21:53:19 PDT by kattracks

 Vice President Al Gore's indignant tale of a prescription
 drug costing more for his mother-in-law than for his dog
 came back to bite him yesterday when aides said the story
 was made up.
Mr. Gore, who told the
 anecdote in Florida to illustrate the
 need for his $253 billion drug plan
 for seniors, fabricated the cost of
 the drug itself, the comparative
 doses for his pet and for Tipper's
 mom, and his family's bills for
 them.
In fact, Gore aides yesterday
 could not say whether the
 candidate's mother-in-law,
 Margaret Ann Aitcheson, pays for
 the arthritis medication Lodine out
 of her own pocket or if the cost is
 covered by insurance.
A spokesman for Republican
 presidential nominee George W.
 Bush said the episode was only the
 latest example of Mr. Gore's
 "troubling pattern of embellishing
 and exaggerating his plans and personal experiences." The
 vice president has exaggerated his role in the creation of
 Internet and claimed he and wife Tipper were the inspiration
 for the Erich Segal novel "Love Story."
"This certainly underscores the fact that the vice president
 will say anything to get elected," said Bush spokesman Karen
 Hughes.
A Gore spokesman, Jano Cabrera, responded, "The only
 one who's inventing facts here are the Bush campaign. The
 facts are that Miss Aitcheson is prescribed Lodine."
But other details that Mr. Gore presented as facts on Aug.
 28 in Tallahassee are clearly wrong.
Mr. Gore said he pays $37.80 per month for Shiloh, his
 14-year-old black Labrador retriever, to take Etogesic, the
 animal version of Lodine. He said his mother-in-law's monthly
 bill is $108.
At the time, Mr. Gore said of his family's predicament:
 "That's pretty bad when you have got to pretend to be a dog
 or a cat to get a price break."
However, Gore aides acknowledged yesterday that those
 figures are not the actual costs for Mr. Gore's family. They
 were borrowed instead from a House Democratic study on
 rising drug prices.
Mr. Cabrera could not say yesterday what the actual
 costs are for either the dog or Mrs. Aitcheson.
"I'm not sure exactly what levels she takes or Shiloh
 takes," he said.
And Mr. Gore's example wrongly assumed that both pet
 and human were taking the same dosage, which veterinarians
 say would cause serious digestive problems in a dog.
Further, Mr. Gore misused the prices from the
 Democratic report because they represent the price to
 wholesalers, not the retail cost of the brand-name drug.
Mr. Cabrera presented that inaccuracy yesterday as a
 positive for his boss.
"Keep in mind they're paying retail costs, so [the disparity]
 is going to be only higher," he said.
But asked whether Mr. Gore's mother-in-law has
 insurance or pays out of pocket, Mr. Cabrera said, "I'll have
 to look into that."
Another misleading feature of Mr. Gore's story, first
 reported by the Boston Globe, is that 85 percent of the
 people who receive the medication take a generic version,
 rather than the more costly brand-name Lodine. The Florida
 pharmacist who hosted a campaign event for Mr. Gore last
 month said most of his customers are too poor to receive the
 drug prescribed for the vice president's mother-in-law.
"Most of our customers are on Medicaid, and we have to
 give them the generic," said Wilmoth Baker of Baker's
 Pharmacy in Tallahassee. "I just took [the anecdote] as
 political rhetoric."
Lodine costs about four times as much as its generic
 counterpart. A typical month's supply of the generic version
 for humans costs about $40, while the brand name costs
 about $160.
Mr. Gore's basic premise is correct � prescription drugs
 in general do cost more for humans than for pets. But a
 spokesman for the Pharmaceutical Research and
 Manufacturers of America (PRMA) said yesterday that
 aspect should not be surprising because federal law requires
 rigorous human clinical trials before a drug is declared safe
 for use.
"Common sense would tell you that developing a drug for
 a person is far more costly than developing it for a dog," said
 Jackie Cottrell. "This whole comparison is making us a little
 crazy."
The PRMA said it takes 12 to 15 years and about $500
 million on average to develop a safe and effective drug for
 humans. The Animal Health Institute estimates that the
 average animal-only drug requires $20 million of research and
 development.
Mrs. Hughes said Mr. Gore's mistake went beyond the
 simple mispronunciations by Mr. Bush that the vice
 president's campaign has delighted in reporting to the media.
"This case is a direct misstatement of fact, which I think is
 far more serious," she told reporters aboard Mr. Bush's
 campaign plane.
Mr. Gore's announcement of his prescription drug plan in
 Florida, one week before Mr. Bush proposed his own plan,
 is credited with improving Mr. Gore's prospects of winning
 the state with 25 electoral votes. Florida is home to nearly 3
 million seniors.