Word: lorazepam
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Grantham worked on rigs in the East Texas oil patch. But ever since a car crash left him blind and disabled, Grantham, 52, has survived on a government payment of less than $1,000 a month. To cope with post-accident trauma, he has relied on a tranquilizer called lorazepam, sold under the brand name Ativan...
...last May came Grantham's prescription for poverty. He was making his monthly phone call to Heartland, an Omaha, Neb., mail-order pharmacy, when a salesman informed him that the price of lorazepam had jumped from $11 to $85 for a month's supply of 100 pills. "I can't live without this medication," he says in an East Texas drawl. "I eventually had to get the money from a loan company...
Grantham isn't sure why lorazepam suddenly got so expensive, and neither are many of the patients whose doctors write more than 18 million prescriptions for the drug each year. But the Federal Trade Commission in Washington thinks it has a pretty good idea. The agency, joined by more than 30 states, recently accused Mylan Laboratories of Pittsburgh, Pa., and its suppliers of illegally tying up chemical feed-stocks used to make the drug. With control of the ingredients in hand, the FTC charged, Mylan could demand whatever price it wanted for the finished product. The FTC is now trying...
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