New study finds contaminants in many generic drugs may have harmful effects
June 2021, phys.org
I'm confused when I hear people say that there is no difference between generic drugs and commercial-branded drugs. I know that they're supposed to be the same, and I even know the manufacturers of the generic drug want them to be the same. But there really is a difference; quality control is the difference:
Nitrosamines were first noticed as an impurity in heart medications which also often have valsartan or losartan as active ingredients. Since 2018, this type of toxin has led to multiple contamination recalls by both Health Canada and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). They can be found in generics as early as 2012 and nitrosamines are now found in many different types of medications.
via University of British Columbia: Joseph Uche Ogbede et al, A genome-wide portrait of pervasive drug contaminants, Scientific Reports (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-91792-1
I will make another comparison here to the difference between natural remedies and medical drugs. The problem with natural cures is not whether or not the stuff works, it's more complicated than that, and unfortunately, the kinds of people who choose these alternative treatments tend to be less interested in the nuance.
The best example comes from teething tablets made of some hard-to-pronounce plant that grows in some hard-to-reach place on Earth. You're supposed to give the tablets to your teething toddler. The problem is that in the process of obtaining this unobtanious plant, the manufacturer also obtains some belladonna, since it grows right next to unobtainium. (Kind of like how asbestos "grows" right next to talc.)
But since nobody is really looking at what's in the teething tablets, and they're certainly not looking for belladonna, yours now contains some belladonna, but that's not listed on the ingredients because even the manufacturer doesn't know it's there. It was an accident, I swear! Now your kid is ingesting a whole lot of belladonna every day, and since it's toxic, your kid is about to lose their liver, and boy was that fast, because now they're dead. This is a true story, and it happens all the time, with all kinds of alternative medicine. It's an accident; it's not intentional. Yes you can blame the company that makes it, but not as much as you would blame them if they knew they were doing it. (Johnson and Johnson knew.)
The guy who started selling radioactive underwear back in the early 1900's also did not intend to kill people. The radioactive pillows and the radioactive toothpaste too. Sometimes you don't have to be malicious to f*** shit up.
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