The Best Stories You've nEver Read #7

If you miss the corner drugstore, this story from the Washington Post is just for you. Reporter Dale Russakoff takes readers into Cheri Garvin’s Leesburg (Va.)  Pharmacy where customers can ask Garvin and her staff to whip up tummy-ache medicine in almost any flavor a child desires (and provide a taste to see if it’s just right) and where they can buy a special diaper rash ointment called “Robert’s Butt Paste.” “Try asking your mail-order drug plan for that,” Russakoff writes. But this story is about more than nostalgia.  It provides a keen analysis of economic trends and what Americans are losing and gaining as the prescription drug trade becomes increasingly competitive.

-- Dick Weiss