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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 21, 1973)
OSPIRG study details many retail drug abuses Americans spend $7 billion a year on prescription drugs, an expense that might be cut if customers could buy drugs by their generic names, instead pf by the well known brand name. In a survey done last month by OSPIRG, a Portland pharmacist said “the drug prednisone sells for $30 per hundred for the brand name, and $1.50 for the generic name.” In the Eugene area, the Register-Guard (August 1972) documented price discrepancies of 12 commonly prescribed prescription drugs in 14 Lane County pharmacies and urging customers to compare prices. Their investigation showed that the highest price quoted was at least 130 percent higher than the lowest for each drug when the brands were the same. Some of the generic drugs were as much as 240 percent more costly from lowest to highest prices. A 1971 Eugene Legal Aid Service study and a 1973 study done by Jan Newton’s economics class at the University found similar price variations. Of 34 different prescriptions at 16 different pharmacies, By BETSY CAREN Of the Emerald there was a 29 percent average difference in prices between the lowest and the highest stores surveyed in the University investigation In another recent study by the U.S. Senate Small Business Subcommittee, Ciba’s Serpasil, often used to reduce hypertension in the aged, sells at $65 per thousand at some drug stores. Its non brand competitor reserpine costs about $2 25 As evidence that Ciba could make a profit at the lower price, the committee reported “the company once offered the same drug to the Defense Department in mass quantities for a mere 60 cents per thousand.’’ “Consumers could save up to 36 percent on their total drug bill if generics were used instead of brand name drugs," OSPIRG survey author Ellen Rosenblum Nelson said. Pharmaceutical companies are in business to make money. The U.S. Research and Development Corporation testified before the U.S. Senate that, “ drug manufacturers deliberately keep prices high and use tactics, techniques, and strategies to perpetuate the false and malicious arguments that drugs sold under their generic names are unsafe.” All drugs must meet rigid federal standards. By law, trade and generic names are identical. It is a very expensive procedure for pharmaceutical companies to reach physicians and convince them of a given product. The Department of Health Education and Welfare estimated in 1968 that drug companies spend about $4,500 per physician to sell their product. Ad vertising is so costly, that smaller firms often cannot compete in the brand name push Consequently, smaller firms promote generic name drugs. They deal mainly with pharmacists, and thus are not able to bring th^r low cost wares to the attention of the physician. A busy physician has a hard time keeping up to date. There are some 1,200 drugs and literally thousands of drug combinations at a doctor’s disposal. According to HEW, “seventy percent of currently marked drugs were either unknown or unavailable fifteen years ago, when more than half of the nation’s physicians were receiving their phar macology training in medical school.” Frequently, physicians must depend on a medical services representative for a quick and often biased thumbnail sketch of recent drugs. Medical students are generally taught chemical and generic names of drugs. The chemical drug is based on its chemical structure. For example, the chemical name 2-methyl — 2-propyl — 1-3 propanediol dicarbonate is a precise JuA. Q0773Z We.** * ooe CAp^ole Jlvtze. a. £*■/ oaJc-il. W J identification of a compound and is meaningful to a chemist. However, the generic name is the shorter one and is usually found in scientific literature. The compound just mentioned is known generically as mebrobamate. The brand or trademark name is used by a company to distinguish its product from that of a competitor, which may contain identical ingredients. A company can select any brand name it wants, and usually chooses one that is easy to recall. For example, the tranquilizer mebrobamate has different brand names. One company has named it Miltown and another Equanil The physician must decide whether to prescribe by generic or brand name. Many physicians will issue the brand name drug over the generic because it is easier remembered and better known. The consumer often has no choice but to buy the more expensive products because of “anti-substitution” laws in effect in almost every state, including Oregon. This law does not allow pharmacists to fill a prescription with a “generic” drug, when the prescription designates a particular “brand name” drug. These “anti-substitution” laws were introduced to combat a rash of counterfeit prescription drug products on the U.S. market following World War II. The pharmacists and the drug industry backed the passage of these laws. Counterfeiting has been suppressed since the passage of the laws, yet drug companies still main tain there is a need for “anti-substitution” laws. Rosenbloom-Nelson stated, “It is ap parent to anyone familiar with the marketing system of large drug com panies that brand substitution is a threat that strikes the very heart of the system. The five thousand dollars spent per year for each physician on promotion of brand names is designed to convince the physician that brand name products are superior to their generic counterparts and to imprint on his mind the catchy brand name of the drug.” Therapeutic equivalency in the sub stitution controversy also needs to be considered. Will two chemical equivalents produce the same clinical effects? As a measurement of these effects, bioavailability, which denotes the relative amount of the drug absorbed or the ef ficiency with which a drug is absorbed, is estimated. Two drug products have the same therapeutic effectiveness, if they have the same bioavailability. “Large differences in bioavailability from one product to another have been reported for a few drugs,” said Mike McClain, Secretary of the Oregon Board of Pharmacy. The experience of the FDA indicates that there is no major difference between generic drugs and their brand-name equivalents, in many cases. “Based on many years of experience with this program, we are confident there is no significant difference between so called generic and brand name antibiotic products on the American market,” FDA Director Henry Simmons stated. The American Pharmaceutical Association’s White Paper concluded, with regard to therapeutic equivalency, “Comparable drug products that meet the official standards and specifications are, for practical purposes, therapeutically equivalent in all but a relatively few cases.” A consumer is not entirely helpless. If a consumer is aware, he or she will find that the prices of drugs may vary greatly from place to place. The OSPIRG report stated, “Consumers can save up to 42 percent on drugs, just by shopping at the right pharmacy.” Consumers can ask their physicians to suggest the generic drug instead of the brand, name drug. Generic drugs are cheaper and often have the same therapeutic effect as brand name drugs. The law does allow a pharmacist to fill a generic name prescription with a brand name drug. Many pharmacists will fill the prescription with a brand name drug and charge the consumer the higher price. Other physician’s practices include: The use of a prescription blank with a phar macy name on it; or a suggestion that the consumer should go to one particular pharmacy. A consumer confronted with these practices should inform a local medical society. In some cases, a physician may ask the name of the patient’s pharmacy and call in a prescription. This is an ethical practice often used to save time. Price comparisons can be done by phone by the consumer. OSPIRG recommends that the consumer obtain a copy of his prescription from the doctor in order to be aware of the nature of the prescribed drug. Housing Office asks dorm residents to watch out for thieves, quit stealing Facing a financial crisis, the University Housing Office is urging students to help crack down on an unnecessary expense — theft. The office has asked the students to cooperate by reporting all thefts from, or thieves in, the dormitories and has urged students to quit stealing silver and dishes from the dining rooms. The response, at least to the first request, has been good, said Dick Romm, assistant director of the Housing Office. He cited a case in which the University recovered four boxes of wood stolen from the dorms because a resident reported the theft. Wood has always attracted thieves, Romm said. “A lot of people know where it is and don’t think so much about stealing from an institution. But it’s our wood — the students’ wood — and it’s their money we have to use to replace it.” Any theft, wood or not, involves the Eugene Police. The thieves can be charged with a felony down to a second degree misdemeanor. “In any case,” Romm said, “we will take action.” The Housing Office’s financial crisis stems from rising food prices. The office anticipated a seven percent increase in raw food costs over the past year. They budgeted for a 10 percent rise. But food costs for October soared to 30 percent above last year’s October costs. To compound the problem, the dorms are housing 90 fewer students this quarter compared to last spring quarter. Besides the theft crackdown, the Housing Office hopes to lower costs by lowering the amount of food wasted on the dorms’ food trays. The office circulated a letter in the dorms at the first of the year asking students to cut down on wastage on food trays. The wastage up to November had dropped from last year’s figure, Romm said, but it is creeping up again. “We are really trying to find ways of reducing expenses without reducing services,” he said.
