Trivia: Do You Know Your Prescriptions?

I tagged this with Doctors, but it's not really related directly to doctors. It's more about the medical community. Drug companies in particular.

I talked about the book Don't Swallow Your Gum! in yesterday's blog post. One item in particular surprised...and ticked...me off.

There are various projects out there for drug companies to figure out the proper chemical makeup to create an effective molecule for treating different diseases and afflictions. The shape and composition the the molecules affects how it binds to target receptors in the body.

The book described how some of the drugs on the market are little more than sleight-of-hand tricks. When manufacturers create certain drugs, mirror image molecules are created, so if you create drug A you actually have a mixture of drug A and drug A' (the mirror image of the drug). The mirror drug is considered inert; it doesn't affect you. Drug companies don't remove it because it is cheaper to leave it in.

Apparently drug companies can remove that extra element and it is instantly considered a new drug.

Here's the part where it drove it home for me: Nexium, "The Purple Pill"? It's Prilosec with the mirror drug removed. They're the same thing, and just as effective at treating heartburn. The thing is that Prilosec is now generic because of how long it's been available.

From the book:
Lexapro is half of Celexa.
Nuvigil is half of Provigil.
Xyzal is half of Zyrtec.
Lunesta is half of Imovane.
Levaquin is half of Floxin.
Focalin is half of Ritalin.

In another case the pill's color was changed and that's it. Sarafem, used for premenstrual dysmorphic disorder, is the SAME as Prozac. The difference? Prozac has a green coating, Sarafem has a pink coating. Oh, and Sarafem is more expensive than Prozac because now Prozac is available as a generic drug.

It's hard to support the idea that these companies aren't squeezing people and taking advantage of ignorance when you discover they're doing things like this, isn't it?