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To: Anthony Wong who wrote (424)	6/28/1998 12:17:00 PM
From: Anthony Wong	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1722

Swiss Minister Says Viagra Shouldn't Be Covered By Insurance Bloomberg News June 28, 1998, 7:18 a.m. PT Zurich, June 28 (Bloomberg) -- Swiss Interior Minister Ruth Dreifuss said users of Viagra, the impotency treatment made by New York-based Pfizer Inc., should pay for the drug themselves, and suggested demand for it within Switzerland is exaggerated, SonntagsZeitung reported. ''It's not possible that half a million men have become impotent overnight,'' Dreifuss told the Swiss newspaper, adding that the government will apply ''strict criteria'' when it decides whether to subsidize the drug, which will be sold in Switzerland for the first time Monday. Pfizer has said Viagra should be treated like any other drug prescribed by doctors, and the cost of the drug should therefore be covered by health insurance. Switzerland was the first European country, and the third nation in the world, to approve the sale of the drug, for which more than 1 million Viagra prescriptions were written in the U.S. within weeks of its launch in May. (SonntagsBlick, 6/28, 1, 2-5, or www.sonntagsblick.ch) --Andrew Blackman in the Zurich newsroom (41-1) 224 4111/jm