Prescription Pharmaceuticals: how price depends on quality
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by: kyala93
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Generic drugs accounted for less than 19% of all prescriptions filled in 1984. Today, generic medicines represent more than 54% of all prescriptions sold in the United States. Besides, even though generic drugs account for more than half of prescriptions sold, they account for less than 16 cents of every dollar spent on prescription medicines. These days there are more than 7,800 generic versions of about 10,668 FDA-sanctioned drugs and medicines.
Many people express doubts about the efficacy of generic medications, since they are often considerably cheaper than brand name medications. They would like to know if the quality and potency have been ignored to make less expensive products.
A 1990 study by FDA laboratories located around the USA reported that for those categories of prescription medications that were likely to trigger safety or potency problems if they were not manufactured in the proper way, the generic drug satisfied the applicable standards in virtually all cases. The categories of medicines tested included contraceptives, antibiotics, and drugs prescribed for asthma, epilepsy, high blood pressure and abnormal heart rhythms. Of the 429 samples of the 24 various medicines tested, including both brand name and generic drugs, there were no samples examined that posed a health threat to patients when examined for efficacy.
The reason that these 24 different drugs were chosen is that they all have a limited therapeutic range. This means that in comparison to most kinds of medicines, for which there is a relatively big range of doses that are both effective and relatively secure, the amount of these drugs that gets into the body must be more tightly regulated. If it is not, the medication may too easily lose its efficacy (if the dosage is too low) or get toxic (if the dose is too high).
The medications tested included 6 asthma drugs, 4 drugs for treating epilepsy, 4 hypertension medications, 4 medications for curing 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 brand name and generics were examined. In the case of the contraception, all of the major brand names, but no generic medication, were examined.
The FDA laboratory studies for purity and quality demonstrated that there was no difference between the brand name and the generic versions for 23 of the 24 medicines tested.
About the Author
The article is written by an anatomist and medical writer. At the author's website you will find a 24/7 on-line pharmacy as well as pick out cheap drugs.r
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