Beware Generics

I have written before about the problem of fake, counterfeit, contaminated and other problems with generics here in the Third world.

Now that the US and Europe are using cheap generics manufactured in India and China, they are confronting the problem we already knew about: That quality control is not adequate and the FDA might not be checking for problems very well.

latest problem? Ranitidine/Zantac, used for heartburn found to be contaminated with a cancer causing chemical.

BBC and Bloomberg have details.

And this excellent Bloomberg article points out why this is happening: this article discusses the cause of the contamination of a commonly used Blood pressure medicine; the company switched to a cheaper solvent in the manufacturing process and didn't check too closely if it made a difference.

this NewRepublic article discusses the problem of substandard and contaminated generic medicines.


and this older StrategyPage article discusses how bribery resulted in a major problem in Chinese vaccine manufacturing, which resulted in a huge public outcry.

how bad was the problem?

This latest incident was so scary that even North Korea refused to buy low cost medicines from China because of the growing popular belief (in China and North Korea) that too many Chinese made drugs were probably ineffective.

This is one reason Xi is trying to clean up the culture of corruption in China. (something to remember in the US/China "trade war" fight: China's advantage is via corruption, and Xi is being pressured both by his own people and by the US to play honest)

Shoddy and substandard Chinese goods are a big problem here in the third world, and not just with medications... but since corruption is also widespread in India, having companies outsource to there might not solve the problem.

Sigh.

more here;


This is not a new problem: NYTimes article in 2010 about the FDA warning about generic medicines.

I have written about the problem several times on my medical blog LINK