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The same but different?Jun 21 '01 Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line Buy the generic and save your dollars for when you fell better!
I may be committing an epinions sacrilege by keeping this epinion short and sweet, but I am going to go ahead and be a rebel at the risk of actually for once being concise. I shall first ask us to apply some common sense to the task at hand. Of course generic and name brand OTC drugs are equal in effectiveness despite the disparity in cost. In adherence to my plan to keep this short and simple, anyone with any sort of medicine training learns that a drug can masquerade under any of three guises; you have your chemical name, a brand name, and a generic name (the simple name for the drug). The FDA regulates all OTC medicines so that all drugs manufactured for over the counter have standardized and safe dosages. Thus, if you buy generic ibuprofen or the brand name Motrin, you are going to get the exact same dosage (USP, 200mg) as regulated by the federal government. What this means, of course, is that whether you spend ten dollars on a bottle of 20 caplets, or ten dollars on a bottle of 750 caplets, you are absolutely going to get the equivalent effectiveness in the active ingredients of both medicines. Now, there are often some subtle differences that most of us can live with when we comparison shop. Often the brand name drug is packaged neater, more conveniently, and the pills will stay true to form down to the bottom of the bottle. Sometimes if you purchase the generic brand, the pills may lack the nice enteric coating that keeps them from becoming powdery. Technically, enteric coating is to protect your stomach from the medication so that it rather dissolves in the intestines. As an aside, you should never break a caplet that has enteric coating as this defeats the specific purpose of the enteric coating, and in some cases this can be extremely dangerous. Presently, you can purchase almost all generic forms of OTC drugs in the same form as the brand name, coatings and all. In my opinion, there is never a reason to buy the brand name of a drug unless you like to waste your money. If you are persuaded by the commercials that proclaim that their medication is the one most given out at hospitals, it may be true, but only because that company gives that medication to the hospitals for free to be handed out to patients.  |
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