Posted by bassman on April 6, 2006, at 14:14:31
In reply to Re: are generics weaker » bassman, posted by yxibow on April 6, 2006, at 1:39:48
Looks like we both have our minds made up on the value of generics; as probably areo any readers of this thread. Just to answer your questions: Perhaps you recall the generic house scandals, where the bioavailability failed for the generic house formulations, so they bought the brand name and used that. So sometimes, the generic house formulations don’t work at all. No one think that’s still isn’t going on in some form.
Yes, the Xanax generic caused withdrawal after Xanax was in a peer-reviewed journal. Valium, Tofanil are a very old meds-you can still them as the brand name.
”Unfortunately its much more than 2 cents... some health plans won't cover the brand names or will charge large copayments. Just looking at the price differences between brand name benzodiazepines and their generics is astronomical.”
The price difference to the pharmacist is huge, too. The pharmacies don’t make a lot of money on brand names, they do make a lot of money on generics.
With alcoholic beverages not being equivalent, I meant in terms of intoxication (the drug effect, if you will), not reaction to sulfites, other organic ompounds, etc. Many people can’t drink vodka, which is the purest of the alcoholic sources, although they can drink the much more complex beer and wine.
I just don’t like the idea of chronically taking meds that were made by the cheapest possible process, with untested (although small amount) impurities, on a formulation that has not been tested in a bizillion people, like Phase III trials for the brand name, and shown to be reasonably safe and effective. If I’m going to be used as a test subject for a new formulation, please, give me my meds free.
My bias is no doubt from being a pharmaceutical research chemist and seeing analytically the difference between generic and brand name. I really wish I could say (being a very frugal person), “get generics, they’re really the same thing”, but in my experience, that’s not always the case. Pharmaceutical companies do a lot of things that aren’t very socially friendly, but they do make quality products-not for any eithical reasons, it’s just because it doesn’t make sense to cut corners when you are making a billion dollars (literally) a year on a product. For a generic house, the lowest cost/quality that passes specs is the goal. Thus my advice, which comes down to, “be careful”.
poster:bassman
thread:628499
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20060403/msgs/629707.html