European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - August 18, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Friday August 18, 1989 the stars and stripes Page 7 generic drug investigation widens Frank e. Young Washington not the fo9d and drug administration expanded its investigation of the generic drug Industry wednesday seizing samples of the 30 top Selling generic drugs. The products account for roughly 75 percent of All prescription generic drugs on the Market and Range from antibiotics like penicillin to the popular pain re Liever ibuprofen. The Agency s actions follow the disclosure of fraud and payoffs in the Fra s generic drug division. This initial discovery led to inspections that found irregularities in some generic drugs and the Agency has now expanded the Effort significantly. Three former employees of the generic drug division have pleaded guilty to accepting thousands of dollars in illegal payments from drug manufacturers in Exchange for treating the company s drug applications More quickly. More recently two companies have admitted giving the Fra false information about drugs on the Market and investigations into wider improprieties arc under Way. In recent Public statements. Fra commissioner Frank e. Young has said the improprieties seemed to be confined to a few isolated cases. But officials have increasingly become concerned that the entire Industry is tainted. Young himself in an internal memo that became Public last week predicted additional criminal indictments. Should the situation become much worse there is a real possibility that the generic drug Industry May be totally Dis credited he added. Generic drugs Are less expensive co pies of higher priced Brand name drugs whose patents Nave expired. Demand for these drugs has risen sharply in recent years spurred by the efforts of the gov can mint and insurers to control health care costs. Nearly a third of the prescription drugs made in the United states arc generic and sales in 1988 totalled $3.4 billion. More than 1,000 samples arc currently being obtained and shipped to 12 Federal laboratories where they will be subjected to Complete chemical evaluations. The object is to determine whether the pharmaceuticals being sold match the formulations that received Federal approval. No unsafe drugs have been found so far. Although irregularities in manufacturing have Beni discovered and arc suspected to be More widespread than previously thought Fra officials said. Lab results arc not expected to be Complete for several weeks but the Fra said it would promptly announce an discovery of unsafe drugs in the mean time. Representatives of the generic drug Industry said they welcomed the Fra s testing and predicted it would remove suspicions created by improprieties at Small number of companies. We re very anxious to have them do this said Roberts milanese executive director of the National association of pharmaceutical manufacturers in new York. The headlines have All been caused by a relatively few products but the whole Industry has been  the samples being examined include antibiotics like penicillin Tetra cycling and erythromycin each of which is pre scribed for a wide Range of bacterial infections. Other drugs on the list include  with codeine which i sold under the Brand name tylenol no. 3, and phenobarbital a sedative. Louisiana governor s reprieve spares life of condemned killer from wire reports Baton Rouge la. Gov. Buddy Roemer decided wednesday night to spare the life of condemned murderer Ronald Monroe although the evidence is persuasive to me that he is guilty Monroe 35 and described As mildly mentally retarded was scheduled to die in Louisiana s electric chair aug. 30. He was convicted in 1980 of stabbing to death a neighbor Lenora Collins in 1977 As her horrified children looked on. Defense lawyers have contended another Man a for Mer husband of Collins committed the crime. The Case has drawn National attention. Roemer announced his decision after meeting with defense lawyers and then with prosecutors and a daughter of the victim. The governor said his review of the evidence convinced him Monroe was guilty of the crime. But he said enough doubts had been raised that he was not prepared to go Forward with the execution. In an execution in this country the lest ought Dot Tobe reasonable doubt the governor said. The test ought to be is there any doubt and i came to the very difficult conclusion that the Pardon Board did that while he met the test for guilt the lest for execution was not  after a hearing last year the Louisiana Pardon Board recommended Monroe s sentence be commuted to life but it said the recommendation was based on a deprivation of due process of Law and was not a comment on Monroe s guilt or innocence. Twelve years after the crime the facts in the Case arc tangled and haunting with the prosecution and defense presenting two radically different versions of the murder. Despite questions raised by the defense the Case re Mains one in which the two witnesses to identify Monroe As the killer 10 years ago insist he is the killer today. Army to study pan am 103 grief Syracuse . A the Syracuse University basketball coach his players and the University Community will be the focus of a six month army research project on grief an official said wednesday the Walter Reed army Institute of research in Washington plans to look into How relatives friends fellow students City and University leaders reacted to and coped with the crash of pan am flight 103 last december. A terrorist bomb exploded in the plane As it flew Over Lockerbie Scotland killing 270 people including 35 students in Syracuse s study abroad program. A Clay ., couple and three other students from Cen trial new York also died in the bombing. Researchers Hope to gather data on How people Han dle grief and How Best to instruct Counselor and others to Deal with the bereaved. Researchers Are especially interested in the emotions of coach Jim Boch Cim and basketball team members who played in a game against we slim Mich Igan the night of the crash said capt Paul Barton of the army s department of military psychiatry. Syra Cuse won the game 94-71. It was a controversial decision and some observers Felt it was disrespectful Bartone said. Others thought it was the Best thing to do. We want to Sec the Impact of the decision on players. The army parallels to this because when a unit suffers major losses often there is not a great Deal of time for formal mourning before activities must re sume he said. The Syracuse project is an Extension of a 3-Ycar-old project by the department in which researchers have studied bereaved family members and those assigned to help families after a dec. 12, 1985, charter airline crash in Gander Newfoundland in which 248 soldiers were killed. F-16 crashes in Florida Pilot ejects Homestead Fla. A an air Force Pilot ejected from his f-16 Jet fighter moments before it crashed wednesday in swampland near Homestead fab official said. Cape. Randall Harpe 27, was treated for minor in juries at a Hospital on the base which is about 25 Miles South of Miami. Air Force officials did not disclose information about Harpe s specific injuries or the cause of the f-16a crash. Air Force officers have interviewed Harpe an viewed the burned wreckage of the Jet which narrowly missed Power lines on its descent shortly after noon. It. Terry Bowman said Harpe was preparing to land when he ejected from the $16 million aircraft. Harpe was on a routine training flight officials said. The it crashed about 2 h Miles from the base an about a mile from a Ocsid Enlal neighbourhood and a High school. Harpe was picked up about a mile West of the crash site by a Homestead police officer. Military police with combat rifles kept civilian from the wreckage. Television news helicopters were chased off by military aircraft. Navy contends designer flows hamper Trident Washington not the Navy believes designers made a fundamental miscalculation in building its biggest nuclear missile the Trident ii which has tailed in two of its three undersea tests a Navy official said wednesday. The first missile exploded March 21. Four seconds after it was launched from a submarine off the cast coast of Florida. The second test aug. 2, went largely according to plan but the third self destructed tuesday. Rear adm. Kenneth c. Mallcy head of the Navy s ballistic missile program said that despite computer simulations engineers seriously underestimated How much pressure is on the Trident 2 As it hurtles up through the water from its submarine launcher. He said they had also failed to anticipate the effect of water jets caused by the missile s movement. The Trident 2, designed to carry up to eight Large nuclear warheads is scheduled for deployment aboard a new generation of submarines in the 1990s and is supposed to be the Centrepiece of these based leg of the american nuclear Arsenal until the year 2032. Until the test failures the Trident 2 was the one Clement of the defense department s nuclear modernization program that was moving along smoothly having successfully completed 16 of 19 test fir Ings from land. The testing program is far behind schedule. The two other elements the stealth bomber and development of a Mobile land based missile have run into technical snags and heavy congressional opposition. The Trident 2, which is 44 feet Long and weighs 130,000 pounds at launching is much longer and nearly twice As heavy As the Trident 1. Although engineers expected the larger missile to create More turbulence than the Trident i As it passed through the water they miscalculated How much More and what effect that would have on the Trident 2 s rocket engines. As a result of the miscalculation Mallcy said in an interview the original nozzles on the missile s first stage rocket were not Strong enough to with stand the additional turbulence and they had to be redesigned after the first test missile exploded. The Navy must now determine Why the rebuilt nozzles failed tuesday Malley said. Mateys account based on a preliminary analysis of the failed third test marked the fullest explanation of what has gone wrong with the missile since the Navy began launching it from a submerged submarine