HOUSE APPROVES PRESCRIPTION DATABASE

System Would Help Spot Cases Of 'Doctor-Shopping'

Iowans' prescription orders would be tracked on a statewide computer
system under a plan approved Thursday in the Iowa House.

The proposal, which passed the Senate last week, was approved on a
99-0 vote in the House. Its goal is to help doctors and pharmacists
spot patients who are trying to dupe them into approving
prescriptions for narcotics or other addictive drugs.

The plan nearly foundered in a Senate committee last month amid
concerns about patient privacy. But it was resuscitated after
lawmakers limited access to the database by police and state
regulators. Under the new plan, only doctors and pharmacists could
have regular access to the information.

Rodell Mollineau, a spokesman for Gov. Tom Vilsack, said the governor
probably would sign the bill. Mollineau expressed regrets that the
Legislature dropped plans to include pseudoephedrine in the list of
drugs to be tracked by the system. Pseudoephedrine, an ingredient in
many over-the-counter cold medicines, is commonly used to make methamphetamine.

Including it in the new database "would have been a good opportunity
to build on the meth laws passed last year," Mollineau said.

The House passed a significantly stronger version of the bill in
2005. Under that plan, the project would have included a computer
program to automatically search for patients who were buying multiple
orders of the same drugs. Supporters said the program would have
helped spot patients who were "doctor-shopping."

But opponents, led by physician groups, helped ground that proposal
in the Senate. They said that it would have been an invasion of
privacy, and that it could have made doctors wary of prescribing pain
medicine for people who needed it.

The Iowa Board of Pharmacy Examiners, which proposed the system, has
obtained $642,963 in federal grants to set it up.

The system would automatically collect information from pharmacies
throughout the state. Terry Witkowski, an administrator for the
board, said regulators hope to have it running by the end of the year.

{Sidebar} Lawmakers cite Gleason death

MARCH 25 SUICIDE: Supporters of a proposed prescription-drug tracking
system have pointed to the March 25 suicide of Dr. Stephen Gleason, a
prominent Des Moines physician who admitted that he manipulated
numerous doctors and pharmacists into filling prescriptions to feed
his relapse into narcotics addiction.

INTERVIEW: In an interview six weeks before his death, Gleason said
the original drug-tracking proposal probably would have caught him
before his life collapsed. Under that plan, a computer program would
have combed through records, flagging patients who filled multiple
orders for the same medications. "That would have stopped me cold," he said.

EXPRESSED DOUBTS: Gleason, Gov. Tom Vilsack's former chief of staff,
said he hadn't closely followed the debate over the proposal, but he
expressed doubts that a system without the automatic-search function
would have helped in his case. He said his relapse lasted just seven
weeks, during which he went from sobriety to a desperate state of
heavy drug use and depression.

SKEPTICISM: He expressed skepticism that a passive system, in which
doctors and pharmacists would have to look up records, would have
caught up with him in time.

Gleason gave the interview in a Des Moines addiction-treatment
center, where police took him after they were called by his worried family.