DRUG-DILUTION CASE MAY RAISE AWARENESS

Reports that a Kansas City, Mo., pharmacist diluted chemotherapy drugs ordered by doctors to treat cancer patients shocked a nation that relies heavily on prescription drugs and puts all its faith in the men and women who fill them.

Robert R. Courtney, 48, is being held without bond accused of misbranding and adulteration of drugs by diluting prescriptions for Taxol and Gemzar filled at his Research Medical Tower Pharmacy in Kansas City.

If convicted, he faces up to three years in prison without parole and a $250,000 fine.

Courtney has pleaded innocent to the charge. Lawsuits by cancer patients against Courtney, a millionaire, are mounting.

An alert drug salesman noticed Courtney was billing doctors for more chemo medication than he was buying. One doctor, who ordered about $100,000 of Gemzar per month from Courtney's pharmacy, provided samples that were sent to an independent testing lab, and the tests showed each of the samples contained less than one-third of the amounts of the drugs the doctor had prescribed.

The government has regulators who watch over pharmacists, but industry experts say there aren't nearly enough. Missouri's pharmacy board has six inspectors who make unannounced visits at pharmacies, but they're responsible for nearly 6,800 pharmacists at 1,550 pharmacies.

The Food and Drug Administration has an enforcement arm too, but it has just 150 agents nationwide, and they are responsible for regulating drugs, not pharmacies. The 11 agents in Kansas City must cover 11 states.

There are so few regulators that about the only way they can catch a crooked pharmacist is by luck, the experts say. And they apparently aren't very lucky: A pharmacist and attorney at the American Pharmaceutical Association said she could not recall a single case involving dilution of drugs by a pharmacist.

There was plenty of financial gain to be made just one prescription of a diluted cancer drug would have saved the pharmacist $780.

But what shocked the nation was that someone in such a trusted position could commit such a heinous crime, one that could cost people their lives.

For all the lives that have ended tragically because of one phramacist's greed, it doesn't seem like the charges that have been broughtso far fit the crime. Surely prosecutors will seek ways to keep Courtney locked up for far longer than three years.