Congratulations on your superb report (June 26-27) on drugstore prescription errors.

Wyatt Olson, the reporter, appears to have touched all the bases in presenting a devastating exposure of a widespread abuse that threatens the health and the lives of all of us. He presented case after case of misfilled prescriptions, naming the victims and the pharmacies and the drugs that were prescribed and the drugs that were mistakenly furnished.

He reported judgments imposed by the courts, as well as payments offered by pharmacies — some of them ludicrously inadequate — in efforts to stave off lawsuits.

He interviewed pharmacists, to tell their side of the story. And he gave the pharmacies full opportunity to try to explain and defend their behavior.

Finally, the paper had the courage to name the worst offender, Rite Aid, in the headline and in a dramatic photograph of a Rite Aid drug container bearing the label of a misfilled prescription and to put the story on Page One.

Thank you for an example of reporting and newspapering at its best. Richard Dudman Ellsworth

My family and I are furious and very sad about the vicious front-page slam against Rite Aid pharmacies. With many truly vital prescriptions, we have been served by Rite Aid as long as they have been in our area. The pharmacists are always careful, concerned and sensitive to our needs. When they are not absolutely sure what the doctor wrote, they call and ask. Every day we trust these people with our lives, and they deserve that trust. We are grieved to find our daily paper engaging in such nastiness. Should we wonder who would profit from it? Gordon Stockley Evelyn Stockley Enfield

The Rite Aid corporate story is a study in miniature of the perfect dichotomy that has become our ’90s American culture. We rush to praise Rite Aid’s successful business tactics because their dividends pay so well; yet we find those same tactics are what bring about the long hours and stressful conditions that cause pharmacist error.

Alex Grass, founder of Rite Aid, was once photographed gleefully dancing in the grave of a competing pharmacy chain after its acquisition. I wonder if we would all be so quick to praise his business acumen or buy his stock if that grave belonged to our child or elderly parent who was given the wrong prescription? Jeffrey K. Jacob Corinna