Evening star., 1961-07-28
Hiqh Cost of Druqs

HIgh Cost OF Drugs
While much evidence is yet to be
heard on It's remedial proposals, the
Senate Monopoly subcommittee is
making an increasingly persuasive case
for the need of legislation which will
reduce the unconScionably high prices
of prescription drugs, while at the same
time assuring their safety and useful
ness. In general, we think the key
provisions of the Kefauver bill designed
to accomplish these results are on the
right track.
AS might be expected in a probe of
an industry so vast and so complex, the
Kefauver bill is full of controversial
ramifications. It's main thrust, however,
through variety of means, is to induce
more competition in the production and
the sale Of drugs, and thereby reduce
their costs. The subcommittee record
is replete with examples of drug costs
(and of drug-company profits, as well),
which are shockingly excessive by any
standard of evaluation.
Among the intriguing goals of the
bill is an effort to persuade doctors, in
prescribing drugs, to a greater use of
the generic (or Officially names of drugs,
rather than trade names which fire.
quently command far higher prices for
precisely the same product Many doc
tors, according to the subcommittee,
have refrained from this practice in the
understandable fear that they might
run the risk of placing an inferior drug
In the hands of their patients. Other
provisions of the Kefauver bill, however,
are aimed specifically at assuring that
such drugs in fact are not inferior, but
that all drugs marketed are both safe
and efficaciouS. This would be accom-
pliShed in part by authorizing the Food
and Drug Administration (Which now
has the legal authority only to rule on
the safety of drugs) to determine as we'll
that they live up to the claims made for
them as to usefulness.
A few weeks ago, at the start of the
current round of hearings, we were
impressed by the American Medical
Association argument that every private
physician must determine in the final
analysis what drugs are useful for each
patient, and that the new control pro-
posed for the FDA might deny doctors
access to drugs of possible value to one
or another of their patients. In view of
the testimony from individual doctors
since that time, however, and in view of
the explanations offered by Senator
Kefauver, it is difficult to believe that
useful drugs actually would be kept out
of doctors hands. In very real sense,
the F'DA already is forced to consider
the efficacy of drugs in certifying their
safety, for there are few drugs in the
entire armamentarium of medicine
which do not have the potential for i'll
effects on someone. In practice, of
course, the FDA must weigh these
potentials for harm against the degree
OF curative benefit which each new drug
possesses. We see no. inconsistency,
therefore, in broadening this evaluation
of efficacy, or in the separate provisions
OF the bill which would impose tighter
controls on misleading or false infor=-
nation which might be disseminated
by drug companies to doctors in their
extensive promotional campaigns.
There are other provisions-most
particularly one which would modify
product-patent rights on drugs-which
require more testimony, especially that
of patent experts. Indeed, the drug
industry itself has not yet had an op-
portunity to present its side of the story.
The subcommittee nevertheless has
amassed truly. overwhelming amount
of evidence in support of its charges.