Bad drugs

This doctor says not to take Generic drugs, this article is scary, why in the world can't we make drugs in this country, also our supplements.


Dr. Crandall advises taking the brand-name version of medications, not generics, whenever possible.


India provides about 40 percent of the generic drugs sold in the U.S. But in recent months the Food and Drug Administration has banned the import of medications made at facilities owned by three of India’s largest drug manufacturers, Wockhardt, Ranbaxy Laboratories Limited, and Sun Pharmaceuticals Ltd. In addition, the World Health Organization has warned that Indian drugs account for one-fifth of the fake drugs sold worldwide.



Here are some of the drug recalls resulting from manufacturing problems at major Indian pharmaceutical firms:
•Sun Pharmaceuticals recalled nearly 400,000 bottles of the decongestant cetirizine (Zyrtec) and 251,882 of the antidepressant venlafaxine (Effexor) this past May because the pills failed to dissolve properly. The drugs were distributed by the drug maker’s U.S. subsidiary Caraco Pharmaceutical Laboratories, but were manufactured in India.
•Also in May, Ranbaxy recalled 30,000 packs of the allergy drugs loratadine and pseudoephedrine sulphate extended release tablets because of manufacturing defects in packaging.

•In March, Sun recalled a batch of a generic diabetes drug bound for the U.S. after an epilepsy drug was found in it. A patient discovered the error after noticing the wrong medication in the drug bottle.
•Also in March, Ranbaxy recalled nearly 65,000 bottles of the statin drug atorvastatin calcium (Lipitor) after 20-milligram tablets were found in sealed bottles marked 10-milligrams. A pharmacist in the U.S. discovered the mix up.
•The FDA issued an alert in 2013 over manufacturing problems occurring in one of Ranbaxy’s Indian facilities and advised U.S. custom officials to hold up importation of the medications until the company complied with regulatory standards.

•In 2012, Ranbaxy recalled millions of Lipitor pills after glass particles were found in some of them.


Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com [www.newsmaxhealth.com]
Alert: What Is Your Risk for a Heart Attack? Find Out Now

Liz - in addition to the substandard manufacture, quality control and impurity issues of drugs made off shore, long ago, one of my patients was a sales rep for the company then known as Burroughs Wellcome of the UK now merged with another drug giant, Glaxo He warned me about generic drugs long before I ever had occasion to use Rx drugs for my heart or other reasons.

He cautioned that one should always take the brand drug rather than generic ....especially for heart drugs... because the standards for the brand drug held to a closer tolerance of ingredients per dose than did generics. He said that this 'leeway' with generics was known to cause problems with heart patients since there was often not enough of the drug included to reach the recommended pharmaceutical dose 'potency' upon which the dosing was originally based. Of course, generics cost less but in some cases, you may not get as precise a dose as was intended by the prescribing physician. It might matter with some patients and with other drugs or circumstances, the deviation may not cause a problem... but the impurity and quality control issues are totally another story for all the obvious reasons when products are made off-shore.

Jackie

Here's what the FDA has to say about generic drugs: "---3.5% is the average difference in absorption into the body between the generic and name brand."

[www.fda.gov]

The FDA only requires that you get 80% to 125% of the drug into your bloodstream from a generic medication compared to the original drug, so if you had the minimum on one batch and the max on the next one you could be on the end of a bell curve and see a 45% difference in the same medication in two consecutive doses.

I'd bet there's at least that much difference in timing of the drug dosage when considering the half life; i.e., who takes their medications at anywhere close to the same times each and every day. If I have something unusual going on, I may have as much as a +- 4 hour difference in the timing of my meds from day to day or during any given day. For a 12 hour half life drug, that's 33% difference in the medication level that might be in my body at any given time. And that certainly happens far more often than I renew a generic prescription.

Also, for those of us on Medicare or getting prescriptions through the VA, getting prescirbed name brand drugs when generics are available is very difficult. Iin my case anyway; name brand required higher level script than my regular cargiver could write, more testing, more waiting, more questioning and whatever additional delays they could do to get me to conform.

Gordon

Here's a list of recent FDA drug recalls. Looks like a lot more name brand recalls than generic to me and I suspect there are a lot more generic drugs distributed than name brand..

[www.fda.gov]

Gordon

Happy Independence Day to all

Gordon - a small disparity in dosage concentration could still be critical for some heart patients… although probably not specifically for AF… but for other generic heart meds.

However, regarding your swing in inconsistent dosing patterns, you should try valiantly to make sure your meds approximate the time consistently so that the dosing concentration levels remain as constant as possible. Otherwise, when you leave a 4-hour gap, your body has to adjust or compensate which takes extra energy and can dilute the efforts.

Obviously, with some drugs, it’s more critical than others to keep the dosing schedule more precise.

Jackie

Are Drugs Safe?

July 1, 2014
Report by: Alliance for Natural Health USA

ANH-USA submits a legal petition to the FDA. Action Alert!

A number of drugs contain an incredibly toxic chemical, even though safer alternatives exist. Big Pharma could have but chose not to clean this up voluntarily.

In May, we told you how the FDA was asking the pharmaceutical industry to police itself on the use of phthalates—synthetic chemicals used in plastics, lubricants, insect repellants, nail polish, perfumes, and prescription drugs. Phthalates are acknowledged by the FDA to be known endocrine disruptors which cause sterility, birth defects, and developmental delays. Congress banned phthalates from children’s toys, but allowed their use in other products, asking industry to voluntarily remove them and use less toxic chemicals.

This week ANH-USA submitted a legal petition to the FDA to ban phthalates altogether. It would replace the non-binding guidance currently in place that “recommends” safer alternatives, since that guidance has had very little positive impact.

Drugs such as Asacol and diadonisine (sold under the brand name Videx) and at least fifteen others still contain phthalates. In one case, a man taking Asacol for ulcerative colitis had a concentration of phthalate metabolite measuring nearly 17,000 parts per billion. The average phthalate metabolite for the general population is 46.

There is no reason to use phthalates other than to protect Big Pharma’s profit margin. The FDA acknowledges that safer alternatives exist, as one can find in FDA’s inactive ingredient database.

Action Alert! We need your help to put pressure on the FDA to grant our petition. Contact the FDA immediately and tell them there is no reason for drugs to contain phthalates a moment longer. They should be banned outright instead of relying on drug makers’ voluntary compliance.

Copyright © 2013 Alliance for Natural Health USA (ANH-USA). Permission granted to forward, copy, or reprint with date and attribution (including link to original content) to ANH-USA. Except where otherwise noted, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Use of This Website: The entire contents of this website are based upon the opinions of the Alliance for Natural Health USA (ANH-USA), unless otherwise noted. Information on this website is provided for educational purposes only; it is not intended as a substitute for medical or professional advice of any kind. It is intended as a sharing of knowledge and information from the research and experience of ANH-USA and the natural health community. Reliance upon any such opinion, advice, statement, or other information shall also be at your own risk. Neither ANH-USA, nor any of its respective agents, employees, information providers, or content providers shall be liable to any user or anyone else for any use or misuse of the information, inaccuracy, error, omission, interruption, lack of timeliness, incompleteness, deletion, defect, failure of performance, computer virus, communication line failure, alteration of, or use of any content herein, regardless of cause, or for any damages resulting therefrom.
[www.anh-usa.org]