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SUNDAY July 28,2013
e icaroCOSS O aionS'260
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IN COUPONS INSIDE
COMMENTARY• F1
bendbulletin.com TODAY'S READERBOARD
500
New homesgoingupin Bend
400
The city issued 345 permits for
Saving orangetrees
— Florida growers are resorting to genetic modification to protect their crops.A3
single-family homes in the first half of the year, up nearly 80 percent from the same time last year.
300
200 100
0 2007 2 008 2009
i.eVittOWn —With low poverty and rising homeprices,
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Source. Bend Community Development Department
Greg Cross/The Bulletin
America's first suburb is doing better than most.A4
DESCHUTES
Audit
Odituary —I indy Boggs, former ambassador and congresswoman, is rememberedas
gets vets
a trailblazer for women.B4
better servlce
WyldWOOdZ —Redmond families start a group for kids
with special needs.C1 Travel —Off the beatenpath
By Shelby R. King
at Yellowstone National Park.C1
The Bulletin
At the park —eend's mobile home boom.E1
Egypt —The military kills at least 72 people protesting the ouster of the country's former Islamist president.A2
And a Wed exclusiveChina has anew breed of whistleblower: Communist officials' jilted mistresses.
bendbulletin.com/extras
EDITOR'5CHOICE
• Drug companies make minor changes to their products to protect their brands and their bottom lines
Former CIA officer accusesU.S. in rendition By Jonathan S. Landay McClatchy Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON — A former CIA officer has broken the U.S. silence around the 2003 abduction of a radical Islamist cleric in Italy, charging that the agency inflated the threat the preacher posed and that the United States then allowed Italy to prosecute her and other Americans to shield President George W. Bush and other U.S. officials from responsi-
bility for approving the operation. Confirming for the first time that she worked undercover for the CIA in Milan when the operation took place, Sabrina De Sousa provided new details about the "extraordinary rendition" that led to the only criminal prosecution stemming from the secret Bush administration rendition and detention program launchedafter the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. The cleric, Osama Mustapha Hassan Nasr, was snatched from a Milan street by a team of CIA operatives and flown to
Egypt, where he was held for the better part of four years without charges and allegedly tortured. An Egyptian court in 2007 ruled that his imprisonment was "unfounded" and ordered him released. SeeCIAiA7
See video
O
coverage of this
story on The
Bulletin's website:
bendbulletin.com/ pill
An internal audit in February of Deschutes County Veterans' Services Department found new clients waiting up to three months for an initial appointment, sometimes causing a delay in receipt of their benefits. Veterans' Services is the local liaison between the federal government's Veterans Affairs Department and the vets who need services, said county department Director Keith MacNamara. "We're here to be their advocates," he said. "We advocate for them for disability, pension, medical or family benefits because the application process can be lengthy and very intimidating." MacNamara requested the county audit his department so he and his staff could learn where they could improve services to their clients. See Veterans/A8
By Markian Hawryluk The Bulletin
i
Two years ago, Erin Matlock spent six months trying different medications to control her newly diagnosed ulcerative colitis. Some didn't work very well, others were too expensive. The 37-year-oldelementary school teacher from Redmond finally settled on a drug called Asacol, an effective therapy that her health insurance would cover. But in June, she learned Asacol was being pulled from the market by the manufacturer, replaced by a similar drug called Delzicol. "That was hard," she said. "It's so difficult to find what will work for you and have everything
tn ',' i I
r
I
i
change." Her doctor wrote a new prescription for Delzicol, which came in a purple capsule. Asacol had been a reddish-brown tablet. The new capsule was difficult for her to swallow, and she could hear something rattling around inside it. She broke open the capsule and found inside a tablet that looked suspiciously like her old Asacol pills. "When I laid the two side by side, they were exactly the same," she said. "The same color, the same size, the same weight, everything." That left Matlock and dozens of other ulcerative colitis patients wondering whether Delzicol was truly a new drug or a shell game meant to stave off generic competition. Was this a new and improved drug orjust another example of a drug company making minor changes to extend the life of a topselling brand-name product? The drug's manufacturer, Dublin-based Warner Chilcott, had only changed an inactive ingredient in the drug and stuck the pill inside a capsule, according to Food and Drug Administration documents. With no new clinical trials, the company secured an expedited review from the FDA and got Delzicol approved six months before Asacol was due to go off-patent. By pulling Asacol from the market, they could get doctors to begin writing prescriptions for Delzicol and patients established on it well before a generic Asacol arrived. The move allowed Warner Chilcott to secure a patent for the outer capsule, giving them a tool to defend Delzicol from generic competition for another seven years. Whether by coincidence or by design, the switch from tablet to capsule form sets up a significant roadblock for any generic company that had been working to bring a generic Asacol to market, effectively protecting a franchise worth nearly $500 million in annual sales. SeeGenerics/A6
Photos by Rob Kerr /The Bulletin
Erin Matlock, 37, of Redmond, takes Delzicol daily for ulcerative colitis. However, when she opened the capsule, she found a tablet that looked nearly identical to Asacol, the medication it replaced.
Students
could get debt help By Tyler Leeds The Bulletin
A bill aimed at lowering the federal student loan rate passed the U.S. Senate last week with support from both Oregon senators. The legislation tied the interest rate to the 10-year Treasury note with a cap on how high the rate can rise. Last month the interest rate on subsidized Stafford loans jumped from 3.4 to 6.8 percent. According to Doug Severs, Oregon State University director of financial aid and scholarships, that increase would have added $2,600 to the average $22,000 in debt accrued by an OSU student. See Debt/A8
Worries mount asSyria luresforeign fighters By Eric Schmitt New York Times News Service
WASHINGTON — A rising number of radicalized young Muslims with Western passports are traveling to Syria to fight with the rebels against the government of
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Bashar Assad, raising fears among U.S. and European intelligence officials of a new terrorist threat when the fighters return home. More Westerners are now fighting in Syria than fought in conflicts in Iraq, Afghani-
stan, Somalia or Yemen, according to the officials. They go to Syria motivated by the desire to help the people suffering there by overthrowing Assad. But there is growing concern that they will come back with a burst of jihad-
ist zeal, some semblance of military discipline, enhanced weapons and explosives skills, and, in the worst case, orders from affiliates of alQaida to carry out terrorist strikes. SeeSyria iA4
INDEX
The Bulletin
Business/Stocks E1-6 CommunityLife 01-8 Milestones 02 Pu zzles C6 01-6 Calendar B2 Crosswords 06, G2 Obituaries B4 Sp o rts Classified G 1 - 6L ocal/State B 1- 6 Opinion/Books F1-6 TV/Mot/ies 08
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