DRUGS: The Double Image

To the public, the U.S. drug industry would like to appear as a dedicated, white-coated scientist skillfully brewing one wonder drug after another. But Tennessee's Estes Kefauver, chairman of the Senate Antitrust Subcommittee, long has had ambitions to paint a different picture —of an industry that fixes prices too high. Last week, opening an investigation of drugmakers, the Keef got in his broad strokes as soon as nervous industry witnesses settled uncomfortably in their hot seats.

Dramatically Kefauver's staff presented a chart showing that the Schering Corp. sold bottles containing 100 tablets...