ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 8, 1996 TAG: 9602080069
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A10 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: WARRENSBURG, N.Y.
SOURCE: MICHAEL HILL ASSOCIATED PRESS
IT TASTES 'YUCKY,' but Neocate keeps her kids healthy, says Catherine Evans, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield should cover it.
Several times a day, Catherine Evans' three children drink a gooey, foul-tasting nutrient solution from a little juice box.
The nutrient drink is necessary because Randi, Brooke and Drew can't digest the complex proteins in most foods, according to their mother.
For Evans, Neocate is an $1,800-a-month miracle that has transformed her achy, nauseated children into relatively healthy kids.
But for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of the Rochester Area, Neocate is not a covered expense. The insurance company contends that if it were forced to pay for the Neocate, it could set a precedent that could raise premiums for others.
The battle is now in court. At issue is whether Neocate is a noncovered food supplement as defined under the insurance policy.
Evans said she first noticed problems with Randi shortly after the girl's birth 13 years ago. She had bad vision, chronic infections and developmental delays. Often, she would spit up food.
Brooke, born one year later, had many of the same symptoms, and doctors later detected damaged chromosomes in the girls. Drew, born the next year, had no such damage.
However, all three became extremely ill around age 6, Evans said. Randi was first. Her limbs tingled, and she complained of nausea, near-constant headaches and sore throats. All three eventually began having extreme difficulty eating.
``Every time they'd take a couple of bites of something, they'd stop eating because of nausea, stomach pain or the inability to swallow their food,'' Evans recalled.
A years-long search for answers took her to several doctors in this tiny Adirondack Mountain town and in Albany and Boston. At Johns Hopkins University Medical Center in Baltimore, Dr. Kevin Kelly suspected that the children had protein allergies.
Kelly put them on a diet of Neocate augmented with the few foods the children could easily digest.
The children dislike the formula - Randi looked up from her checkers and said, ``Yuck!'' when asked about it - but enjoy relatively good health.
LENGTH: Medium: 52 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP. Catherine Evans (right rear) with (from left) Randi,by CNB12; Brooke, 13, and Drew, 11.