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Gore accused of telling tall tale about drug costs

By Keith W. Murrow
Health24News
September 20, 2000


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Washington (H24N). Vice President Al Gore came under intense scrutiny Tuesday from his Republican rival for the White House, Texas Gov. George W. Bush , whose campaign accused Gore of making up a story about the cost of prescription drugs.

"It’s appearing increasingly likely that the vice president fabricated information about his mother-in-law and dog to score political points," Dan Bartlett, spokesman for the Bush campaign said. "Now that legitimate questions are being raised about his statements, he’s hiding behind medical privacy when it was the vice president himself who divulged his family’s medical information in the first place."

The incident in question happened on Aug. 28 during a campaign stop in Florida. There, the vice president, appearing before a group of senior citizens, was highlighting his $253 billion plan to include a prescription drug benefit in Medicare. During the meeting Gore told a story about his mother-in-law, Margaret Ann Aitcheson, paying $108 for the arthritis drug Lodine, while he buys the same drug for his black Labrador, Shiloh, but pays only $37.80.

The question first came up Monday after an article appeared in the Boston Globe where the paper accused the Gore campaign of embellishing the truth about the issue of prescription drug cost. The newspaper characterized the story as another "Gore misstatement" along the lines of he "took the initiative in creating the Internet" and that he and his wife Tipper served as the inspiration for Erich Segal’s novel "Love Story."

Al Gore’s campaign responded to the charges Tuesday saying everything the vice president purported in his Florida speech was true.

"Al Gore’s mother-in-law was prescribed Lodine by her doctor, and the prescription was filled by her pharmacist," Dan Pfeiffer a spokesman for the Gore campaign said. "As for Shiloh, the dog, he was prescribed a generic version of the same drug by his veterinarian."

Pfeiffer went on to say the costs cited by the vice president were part of a study conducted by Democrats in the House of Representatives and were representative of the cost Gore’s family pays for the same drugs.