X-Message-Number: 8810 Date: Wed, 19 Nov 1997 12:20:57 -0700 From: David Brandt-Erichsen <> Subject: Oregon update From the PORTLAND OREGONIAN (weds Nov 19/97) PHARMACY PANEL AFFIRMS SUICIDE DISCLOSURE Upholding a rule that doctors must identify prescriptions for assisted-suicide drugs heats up a dispute between pharmacists and physicians Patrick O'Neill of The Oregonian staff ---------- The state Board of Pharmacy dug in its heels Tuesday by letting stand a ruling that doctors must specify when prescriptions are for terminally ill patients who want to commit suicide. The decision intensifies a disagreement between pharmacists and doctors about Oregon's newly reaffirmed physician-assisted suicide law. At the heart of the conflict is the pharmacists' right to refuse to take part in a suicide and doctors' right to protect patient confidentiality and their own privacy. Oregon's law allows doctors and other health care workers to choose not to participate in a suicide if it violates their ethics. Pharmacists, who would fill prescriptions for life-ending medication under the law, say they also should have the chance to refuse to participate. But the law doesn't spell out how pharmacists would know whether they were filling a prescription for a dose of drugs to be used in a suicide. Early this month, the pharmacy board approved an emergency rule requiring doctors to specify in writing the purpose of a prescription written to help a patient commit suicide. Doctors resent the rule as a breach of patient confidentiality. Two weeks ago, the Oregon Medical Association's governing body announced opposition to the pharmacists' rule and threatened court action. On Tuesday, during a telephone conference meeting of the Oregon Board of Pharmacy, members decided to keep the rule intact. Helen Noonan-Harnsberger, a pharmacy board member, said the rule protects pharmacists. As for patient confidentiality, board members concluded that by their nature, prescriptions reveal much about patients' medical conditions. A prescription for AZT, an AIDS treatment drug, plainly indicates a patient is infected with the AIDS virus, for instance. Jim Kronenberg, Oregon Medical Association spokesman, said Tuesday that his organization "is very sympathetic with their (the pharmacists') problem" but hadn't ruled out court action. Representatives of the association and the pharmacy board are scheduled to meet Friday to try to resolve the issue. If talks aren't successful, "some kind of injunction would be a strategy we would have in mind," Kronenberg said. Doctors are worried that their participation in an assisted suicide might become public. That could make them the target of protests by assisted-suicide opponents, much in the same way that doctors who perform abortions are targeted by anti-abortion groups. Early this month, the federal Drug Enforcement Agency provided another reason for physicians' uneasiness. Thomas A. Constantine, DEA administrator, wrote a letter to two congressmen, warning that doctors who prescribe medicine under the assisted-suicide law would violate the federal Controlled Substances Act. Although Constantine's boss, Attorney General Janet Reno, has not decided whether the DEA might intervene in assisted suicide, doctors fear the prescriptions could present a paper trail for DEA discipline. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., talked with Reno on Tuesday to make a case against federal intervention in Oregon's assisted-suicide law. "She mostly listened," Wyden said. "She seemed anxious to get our arguments laid out. And I stressed that the people of Oregon wanted an answer quickly." Since Constantine's letter was disclosed, Wyden and other Democratic members of Oregon's congressional delegation have complained that the DEA policy would strip states of their rights to regulate doctors' conduct. Reaction to the letters has prompted Reno to order a review of the policy by the Department of Justice, which oversees the DEA. The review panel is scheduled to meet Thursday with Oregon officials, including representatives of Wyden, Gov. John Kitzhaber and state Attorney General Hardy Myers. Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=8810