ice President Al Gore and his aides yesterday continued their attempt to fend off a controversy over whether he misspoke last month in saying that his mother-in-law's arthritis medicine costs three times as much as the same drug taken by his dog Shiloh.
''The issue is not her, the issue is what seniors around the country are paying and the wholesale price is between two and three times as much as what is charged for pets,'' Gore told reporters in Los Angeles.
On Aug. 28, Gore told a group of Florida seniors that his mother-in-law pays $108 a month, and his dog just $37.80 a month, for the same arthritis medicine, Lodine, declaring, ''This is an example in our household.''
On Monday, the Globe reported that Gore lifted the costs from a House Democratic study, not from his household records. The study numbers are for manufacturer's wholesale prices, and, as Gore used them, presume that Shiloh takes an adult dose, a potential overdose for the Labrador retriever.
Chris Lehane, Gore's spokesman, told reporters yesterday that the cost of the Lodine for Gore's mother-in-law, Margaret Ann Aitcheson, was $2.13 a pill. Shiloh's pill - EtoGesic, the animal version of Lodine - costs 92 cents.
But Lehane said he did not know whether Aitcheson, who lives with the Gores, actually pays for her pills, or whether she has an insurance plan that covers the drug. He also left reporters wondering why Gore, a long-time supporter of generic drugs, does not get that low-cost alternative for Aitcheson. The generic, which now accounts for 85 percent of all Lodine prescriptions, costs as little as 40 cents a pill.
Gore's oblique acknowledgement followed two days of accusations that his yarn about his family's costs for Lodine was yet another example of his habit of embellishing facts about his personal life.
''It fits an ongoing pattern where he will simply make things up if it sounds good,'' Ari Fleischer, a spokesman for Bush, said last night.
Despite mounting evidence that Gore misspoke, ''the facts are absolutely accurate,'' said Lehane.
