Prescription drugs - how price depends on quality |
| Date Added: January 05, 2010 11:07:22 PM |
| Author: kyala93 |
| Category: Computers & Internet: Web Directories: Niche Directories: Health |
| Unless you are eager to spend a good deal of money - often hundreds of dollars a year - by purchasing brand name instead of generic drugs, you should ask for the generic version, especially if you are on medication for the first time. In 1984, generic medications accounted for less than 19% of all prescriptions filled. Today, generic medications represent more than 54% of all prescriptions sold in the United States. A great many people have doubts about the effectiveness of generics, because they are frequently substantially cheaper than branded drugs. They would like to know if the quality and effectiveness have been compromised to manufacture less expensive pharmaceuticals. A 1990 study by FDA laboratories placed around the USA proved that for those categories of prescription medicines that were very likely to bring on safety or efficacy problems if they were not produced appropriately, the generic medication satisfied the required standards in nearly all cases. The classes of medications examined included birth control drugs, antibiotics, and medicines prescribed for asthma, epilepsy, high blood pressure and abnormal heart rhythms. Of the 429 samples of the 24 different medicines tested, including both branded medications and generics, there were no samples examined that posed a health hazard to patients when studied for efficacy. The reason that these 24 different medications were chosen is that they all have a limited therapeutic range. This means that unlike with most kinds of drugs, for which there is a relatively vast scope of dosages that are both efficient and relatively secure, the amount of these medications that gets into the body must be more strictly regulated. If it is not, the drug may too easily lose its potency (if the dosage is too low) or get toxic (if the dosage is too high). The medications examined were 6 asthma medications, 4 medicines for treating epilepsy, 4 high blood pressure drugs, 4 medicines for treating heart arrhythmias, a birth control pill, one antibiotic, a medication for treating depression, and the so-called blood-thinning drug. In six classes of medications, both branded and generics were tested. In the case of the contraception, all of the primary brand names, but no generic version, were examined. The FDA laboratory studies for purity and quality showed that there was no difference between the brand name and the generics for 23 of the 24 medications tested. |
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