Generic Drugs: Dangerous Differences?

The content uniformity Chapter 905 of the USP United States Pharmacopeia makes clear the limits for non-uniformity and another chapter concerns itself with drug potency.  These two components are widely recognized as critical standards for drug products to meet.

When drug levels are critical, it is best to pick one brand (or even a particular generic manufacturer's product) and stay with the same one if results are as desired. For other less critical levels, the differences are of much less significance.   

1) Generic Drugs are not the same as branded (Ethical) products. 2) Sometimes the branded drug is not the same as the bio-batch 3) In both cases sometimes it matters for the patient and in other cases it may not.

Dangerous drugs, news at 11 !  Until you can show human studies of differences between generic drugs and brand drugs it is irresponsible to scare the public.  These broad stroke scare tactics have no place in our logic based scientific community.

The news published in the ABC news has alerted public concerns about  different names for a drug, one with a generic name and another with a brand name despite the fact that they are identical. This has also implications for marketing drugs  The FDA furthermore confirmed that the generic version of the drug was equivalent to the brand name. However, concerns were raised...

A recent study by ConsumerLab.com suggests that some generic versions of pharmaceutical products may not be bioequivalent to their brand name counterparts. The difference seems to be in the release rates for extended-release (ER) dosage forms as determined by in vitro ("test tube") analysis of dissolution. Patients who report a difference could suffer from the Placebo Effect, or there could be...

All generics need to be within a certain parameter of efficacy before coming to market. Most insurance plans are making the use of generics the desirable way to go from a finacial perspective. If generics are not equvalent we might as well close up the FDA.