The morning news summarizes a new Consumer Reports look at generic medicines. The focus is on how generics are required to be the "same as" the brand name products, but also on how generics can be different.
The underlying message is that even with the required same amounts of active ingredients, generics may create slightly different levels of medication in the body. Also, the inactive ingredients in the medicine may be different from maker to maker.
I'm fortunate not to have to take a lot of medicines, but I humor my doc by taking something for my blood pressure. Once or twice during the past 10 years, we've experimented twice with taking a generic. But in one instance the new pill caused near-constant diarrhea, and in the other, my blood pressure go so low it felt like I was going to have a heart attack any time I exerted myself a bit. These weren't side effects I read about on the package and then experienced; they appeared shortly after I started taking the new medicine, and ceased as soon as I went back to the regular one.
If the only compositional differences between brands and generics are their "inactive" ingredients, it doesn't make sense that side effects could exist. Yet clearly they do, and they are my reason for not trying generics more often.
Comments