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© St. Petersburg Times, published December 24, 2000
My wife and I are Canadian snowbirds who have been coming to Pasco County for the past 10 years since my retirement. We do appreciate the climate, the beauty and the people of Florida who make us feel welcome. Another plus is the St. Petersburg Times. It is the best newspaper we have ever subscribed to, for many reasons.
For instance, your feature article on the front page of the Dec. 17 edition, written by Times senior correspondent Susan Taylor Martin, Americans cross border for prescription drug bargains, was incisive, well-done and with substantial implications.
One couldn't help seeing that buying a drug for breast cancer, Tamoxifen, in Canada offered a 90 percent savings over buying it in the United States.
I would like to share my own experience, although it involved only a precancer on my face. The prescription given for this condition was Efudex, 5 percent, 25 grams. The cost of this prescription in one of the large pharmacy chains in Pasco County was $120.29. The dermatologist agreed that I could delay the treatment until I returned to Ontario where I am covered under the Ontario Health Insurance Plan, in which case the only cost to me would be the prescription-filling cost and taxes.
I wanted to compare the price of the same prescription to an individual in Ontario not eligible for OHIP coverage, and I was astonished at being informed by my pharmacist that the basic cost (retail) of 25 grams of 5 percent Efudex would be $11.66 plus prescription-filling fee and taxes -- a total cost of $20.85 (Canadian). The comparative cost in Port Richey was $129.29 (U.S.), which would convert to about $175 in Canadian funds. This is a little more than eight times the cost of the same product in the United States.
Prior to writing this letter, I phoned the other major pharmacy chain serving New Port Richey to recheck the cost of this same prescription and was quoted $113.99 and a kind comment from the pharmacist: "Sorry this is so expensive."
Needless to say, you know where I would buy my Efudex medication.
-- Jim Gilmore, Port Richey
Re: Americans cross border for prescription drug bargains, Dec. 17.
One aspect of drug costs was not mentioned: overpricing by the pharmacies. A recent TV newscast reported that a patient could save up to 39 percent by going to an independent pharmacy.
A friend recently filled a prescription at an independent pharmacy. The cost was $13.50. She checked with a chain pharmacy and they wanted $35 for the same prescription. With all their buying power, they could easily charge much less than an independent pharmacy.
-- Bruce H. Frame, Port Richey
Re: Americans cross border for prescription drug bargains, Dec. 17.
The pharmaceutical industry claims it takes 12 to 15 years at the cost of $500-million to bring a new drug to market. It fails to mention how much profit it makes in 12 to 15 years: billions, billions, billions!
My heart bleeds for these controlling conglomerates when they convey their astronomical costs for research and development when it is like pocket-change to them, and the American people are paying "dearly," with sacrifice for many, in their dependence on these products. Why should Americans suffer at the hands of their own?
After reading this article, I recalled another article on the proposed budget -- members of Congress slated to make $145,100, a $3,800 pay raise in the offing (Congress caps session with budget deal, Dec. 16). I wouldn't care if members of Congress made $1-million if they would only put forth the effort to work together, no matter party affiliation, and give all American people the opportunity to enjoy the American way of life for which this country once stood. Right now, they aren't worth minimum wage, excluding the $1 increase.
-- Jack P. Burlakos, Kenneth City
Re: Under 12/Under Arrest, Dec. 17.
Reporter Curtis Krueger did a nice, if incomplete, job of collecting the facts on kids going to the slammer for misbehaving in school. Yes indeed, "What are the alternatives?"
In his supplementary piece (Focus on prevention will work, experts say, Dec. 18) he gives us another puff of liberal smoke: more of the same that brought us to where we are.
Many of us Neanderthals over the age of 60 have fond memories of the Golden Age of the Paddle. As I recall, it was in the fifth grade that I had my first -- and last -- rendezvous with Miss Dempsey and her 24-inch "attention-getter." A half dozen 1-inch holes drilled through the working end ensured no trapped air softened her five firm blows to my tender, young bottom.
Can't remember the deed that necessitated my one-on-one session with Miss Dempsey, but I've no doubt it justified her attention. Justice came swiftly. I was out to the hall, paddled, once again told the rules and back in my seat in about the time it took to recite the Pledge of Allegiance.
The hurt lasted but a few minutes -- the shame remained for years to come. In those days carting off kids to the local lock-up was not only unheard of -- it was undreamed of.
Ah, but we now live in an age when self-esteem rules. An age when everyone is a victim of one thing or another. Our learned therapists cook up marvelous new theories with each passing year. They seek to explain all, but in the end they settle nothing.
Tucked away at the end of the Sunday report was a small graph entitled Different treatment for different races? There's no need to repeat the numbers here. Most readers can guess how they fall.
As your paper never ceases to remind us, a disproportionate number of blacks are in the adult lock-ups of this country. It comes as no surprise then that a disproportionate number of black kids are being hauled off from their classrooms in cuffs. Bill Maxwell & Co., of course, will see in this the phantom hand of white "racism" at work. Victims all. Dear old Miss Dempsey wouldn't have bought a word of it.
Here then is the alternative Kruger fails to mention. I hated Miss Dempsey's class long before her paddle fell on my backside. I tolerated it after. I learned a thing or two at the hand of Miss Dempsey that focused my mind for years to come. If it worked for the insufferable brat that I was some 60 years ago, there's a pretty good chance it will work today. Imagine, a guaranteed solution that won't cost much more than a dime.
Re: Big art, Dec. 17.
I see the phony art era I experienced in Southern California 40 years ago has arrived in Florida. There, on the campus of then-State College at Long Beach (now State University), I came upon a freestanding item I assumed was equipment of the city water department. But, no -- it was art, I learned.
Then a streak of lightning painted on the building where we entered, in taxi-cab black and yellow, was also art. There was some other garish monstrosity that I do not recall at the moment.
As to those on pages 5F and 10F, I would comment that a four-poster bed out of doors defiles nature. The big yellow Smile is garish and ugly. The Eclipse 2000, concrete and painted steel, is also ugly, unfriendly and defiles nature, which Florida can no longer afford to do, especially since every bush and tree has been torn out for "development" (which I call destruction).
It is difficult enough dealing with a declining Western civilization without these added touches of sadism in what is called art. "Be amused" by it, suggests your article. I would go home with a headache if I strolled around this horror in Sarasota.
Please spare us further horror stories.
Once in a blue moon, someone will take pen in hand and produce a masterpiece.
If you read the Dec. 17 edition of the St. Petersburg Times, you may be one among a torrent of readers who will swamp the Times with praise for a brief, true story of extraordinary beauty.
On page 1 of the Floridian section of the paper, a story titled A love song begins. The Times identifies the author as Marina Brown, a registered nurse and a case manager at the Hospice of the Florida Suncoast.
The column, featured as the Sunday Journal, welcomes freelance submissions as a forum for narrative storytelling. It is a wonderful idea and, in the case of Marina Brown and A love song, the Times has struck gold.
May I suggest you reprint this once a year?
-- John R. Miley, Tampa
Big, phony "art'
-- Molly Gill, Largo
A beautiful story
-- Nelson L. Aters, St. Petersburg