Gore Defends Dog Drug Story

— -- Al Gore’s campaign has acknowledged the vice president has been fudging a key detail in his standard stump speeches, but the vice president says it was all for a good cause.

ABCNEWS.COMSept. 20— Al Gore’s campaign has moved to quiet a flap over the vice president’s honesty by releasing figures it says proves he wasn’t making up claims that his mother-in-law pays more for arthritis medicine than it costs to treat his dog with the same drug.

The Democratic presidential candidate has been under fire from his Republican rival for refusing to release the price his family is paying for the prescription drug Lodine after a newspaper questioned the veracity of a story he has been telling on the stump.

Reaching for a personal example to illustrate the breathtaking costs of some prescription drugs, Gore has often told seniors that his mother-in-law pays nearly three times as much for Lodine as his family pays for the same medicine for his ailing dog, Shiloh.

Gore aides acknowledged that the prices the vice president claimed his family was paying for the drug came from a congressional study — not from his family’s own bills.

“The facts are absolutely accurate,” said campaign spokesman ChrisLehane. “I don’t have theexact figures, but I am telling you the numbers are from acongressional study.”

But the study, which was commissioned by House Democrats, cited wholesale prices for Lodine, not the out-of-pocket costs.

“The wholesale price is accurate,” Gore told reporters in San Fernando, Calif., on Tuesday. “The issue is how seniors are charged much more for the same drugs that are prescribed for animals when they’re bought at veterinarians’ offices.

“The issue is not her,” Gore said of Margaret Ann Aitcheson, his wife Tipper’s mother. “The issue is what seniors around this country are paying. The wholesale price is around two to three times as much as what is charged for pets.”