W. Richard Burack M.D.

1926 - 2020

W. Richard "Dick" Burack, MD. The Medical Doctor who wrote the book that helped make the term "generic drugs" a household name and change the prescribing habits of doctors and the dispensing practices of pharmacists, died at home in Jackson, NH, on Sunday, December 29 at the age of 93 from heart disease.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts on November 24, 1926, Dick was the youngest of six children. He attended Boston Latin School and the University of Wisconsin before entering medical school at the age of 19 at the Bowman Gray School of Medicine (now Wake Forest University School of Medicine) in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Upon graduation, Dr. Burack rose from Intern to Chief Resident, in the Harvard Medical Service at the Boston City Hospital. During the Korean War he served in the U.S. Public Health Service as a Coast Guard Medical Officer assigned to Navy submarine hunters in the Pacific Ocean between the Aleutian Islands and Japan, and for the U.S. Coast Guard Base in Boston. Following his military service, Dr. Burack held research and academic appointments in pharmacology at Harvard Medical School and entered private medical practice in Boston.

In 1967 he published "The Handbook of Prescription Drugs," the first book to explain to the general public the fact that many medicines are available at a lower cost if the doctor writes a prescription using the generic rather than the brand name. The New England Journal of Medicine likened the Handbook to "David standing up to Goliath."

Dr. Burack was a principal witness in the multi-year Congressional investigation into "Competitive Practices in the Drug Industry" led by U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson (WI). Dr. Burack wrote updates of his Handbook in 1970 and 1975 (with Fred J. Fox, MD). In the years since the Handbook was first published, all states have enacted laws allowing pharmacists to substitute a therapeutically equivalent, less expensive generic in place of the brand name drug when filling a prescription. Dr. Burack served as Chairman of the Massachusetts Drug Formulary Commission, which is responsible for preparing a list of interchangeable drug products in Massachusetts.

Dick and his wife, Mary, had 5 children. They lived in Cambridge, then Newton, Massachusetts, and spent a year in London, England while Dick did cardiac research at the Hammersmith Hospital.

In 1970 the family moved to Jackson, in New Hampshire's Mount Washington Valley, where Dick practiced internal medicine and cardiology at the Memorial Hospital in North Conway. Dick spent the last portion of his career in occupational medicine, first as the Medical Director for Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company's steel mill in East Chicago, Indiana, and then as a Medical Director for AlliedSignal (now Honeywell) Inc. in Morristown, New Jersey, where he set up medical programs for manufacturing facilities around the world.

Dr. Burack retired to Jackson in 1988 and took up volunteer service, consulting, writing, and traveling. Earlier in his career, Dr. Burack volunteered as a physician at the Grenfell Mission in Labrador, Canada, and in retirement he and Mary volunteered several times at the Hospital of the Sisters of the Sorrowful Mother in St. Lucia. Their pleasure trips took them primarily to western Europe, and regularly to Sweden, where, in 1968, he reestablished connections with cousins with whom the family has grown very close over the ensuing 50 years.

Dick was predeceased by his beloved wife of 65 years, Mary, in June 2019.

He is survived by his five children and their spouses, Anna (Mike) Wilson of Colorado, Tom (Emilie) Burack of New Hampshire, Jim (Katy) Burack of Colorado, Richard (Michelle) Burack of New York, and Ruth Burack-Lamberson (Paul Lamberson) of Vermont, and ten grandchildren whom he adored: Colin, Sarah, Miles, Jillian, Larsen, Beatrice, Linden, Laurel (Poppy), Liam, and Finn.

Gifts in the memory of Dick and Mary Burack may be made to the Tin Mountain Conservation Center (Albany, NH), the Pequawket Foundation (North Conway, NH), the Bartlett-Jackson Ambulance Service (Bartlett, NH), or the Gibson Center for Senior Services (North Conway, NH).

The family extends its gratitude to all of those who provided care and comfort in recent years to Dick and Mary. A memorial gathering will be planned for mid-2020.