SillyDog701

[Antony]

Assume most of us get sick at some stage, and after doctor's prescription, we need to get some medicines from pharmacy.

It has been pretty annoying to me that (until recently)* each time when I visit the pharmacy, they would ask me if I want to have the same medicine in generic medicines. It is claimed that generic medicines have the same chemical compounds, same strength, and does the same job as well known version. They also claimed to be cheaper. As a matter of fact, they are hardly any cheaper (hardly any cents difference for most everyday medicines).

I, of course, do not bother with generic medicines. Simply for the fact that few cents saving is not enough the switch. It's like hardly anyone buys no-name cola or no-name Mountain Dews, why risk your own healthy with no-name medicine.

* After being sick so often, the pharmacist knows me now, and know that I won't get the generic medicine, so he does not ask me that boring question.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.2.19) Gecko/20110707 AlexaToolbar/alxf-2.13 Firefox/3.6.19

[James]

Here in America, generic brands are far, far cheaper than a few cents, Antony. And yes... I definitely will opt for the generic brands since there are exactly the same (perfectly identical) to the brand names. The only difference is in the packaging and the consumer pays for the marketing and advertising that goes into the brand name product. I've seen many generic items 50% cheaper than the brand name item. It's just another way of gouging a gullible, market-oriented consumer society and I refuse to be lead like a sheep to the economic slaughter-house.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:6.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/6.0

[Antony]

Here in America, generic brands are far, far cheaper than a few cents,

Then, that's different.

Here in Australia, there were strong TV adverting on the benefits of using generic brands. Focused on “cheaper”, except when you actually asked for the price difference, it is hardly any difference. Just for a few cents saving, I highly doubt many people would opt for generic medicines.

Perhaps, the generic medicine (organisation) spent way too much money on educating the public. Except the more they tried to educate the public, the more I found it annoying.

A recent TV news test showed that hardly anyone would pick up a 5 cents coins from street, (also a bit difficult for the TV news to find people who would accept a 5 cents coin). And, people would try to save less than 5 cents (in most general cases) by switching to generic medicines?

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.2.19) Gecko/20110707 AlexaToolbar/alxf-2.13 Firefox/3.6.19

[James]

Indeed... the situation you describe, Antony, is very strange and disturbing. Here in America and Canada, the FDA and its equivalent, insist upon these drugs being identical. There would be lawsuits and licenses revoked otherwise. The only difference is in the packaging... period. And as I mentioned, sometimes the savings can be up to 50%. It's just a no-brainer to go with the generic drugs here.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:6.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/6.0

[rahnjacey]

I have read this in a article saying that there’s no truth in the myths that generic drugs are manufactured in poorer-quality facilities. The FDA applies the same standards for all drug manufacturing facilities, and many companies manufacture both brand-name and generic drugs. In fact, the FDA estimates that 50% of generic drug production is by brand-name companies. My physicians require me to take two medications daily. Both of the medications are generics of older, brand name medications. I have never had a problem with either generic.

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.2.24) Gecko/20111107 Ubuntu/10.04 (lucid) Firefox/3.6.24

[Edward]

In some states (Massachusetts is one of them), if a generic equivalent is available, the pharmacist MUST dispense the generic, unless the doctor specifies otherwise in the prescription.

Generics are the exact same therapeutic equivalent as name-brand prescriptions, but cost much less.

Pfizer's Lipitor, which is a cholesterol-reducing medicine, is due to go off-patent soon in the U.S., which will result in generic equivalents becoming available for the first time.

James is quoting savings of up to 50%. Boy, do I have news for him...

UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:9.0) Gecko/20111119 Firefox/9.0 SeaMonkey/2.6