It isn’t tough to understand why generic drugs produce better health outcomes. No, they don’t have any secret ingredients in them that make them more powerful than name brand medications. The reason isn’t scientific. It’s economic.

 

They’re less expensive.

When times are tight and you have to make a call between a prescription and something to eat, you pass over the pharmacy in favor of the grocery store.

According to a January 23, 2009, story in the Columbus Dispatch, thirty six million Americans skipped filling at least one prescription last year. The article referenced a physician who explained that one of the best ways to keep those necessary prescriptions filled was to help patients find generic equivalents of name brand drugs.

If the only way you can afford to fill your scripts involves a cross-border trip into a Mexican border town with one of those infamous farmacias, you may not be doing yourself any favors. Regulations aren’t as strict and those savings might come with a substantial medical cost due to quality shortfalls.

That’s why one of the head honchos at the Food and Drug Administration recently noted that “[w]hen Americans import medicines illegally.. they are faced with a dangerous buyer-beware situation.”

It’s obvious. Cheaper drugs make it that much easier and more likely for people to manage chronic diseases and to recover from illnesses. It doesn’t take a team of Harvard researchers to make a strong case for generics.

If you’re the kind of person who needs that kind of evidence, however, you can read a recent report released in the December, 2008 edition of The Journal of the American Medical Association. A team that included Harvard’s Aaron Kasselheim concluded that generic heart medications are just as good as their brand-name equivalents.

You can file that report under “obvious”. It shouldn’t surprise anyone. Generics contain the exact same active ingredients as the products with big advertising campaigns and memorable names. Governmental agencies apply the same scrutiny to both types of drugs, too. There’s no real difference in terms of composition between name brand drugs and generics. You can find the same statement on various generic pharmacies like www.gold-rx.com, www.generic-rx.net, www.generic-pharmacy-online.net, and others. I have included here only the generic pharmacies I’ve tried and which sell good quality generics.

Kasselheim shed some light on why that conclusion was so important in terms of improving health. “Generic drugs can be a very useful part of a treatment plan – they reduce cost and improve adherence..”

They improve adherence.

It turns out that the common sense arguments about the lower prices associated with generics has some new academic support. That price reduction can actually improve the odds of successful long-term treatment. If a pill of Cialis costs over $17 in your local pharmacy, the generic equivalent can be find for as low as $1.20 in a generic pharmacy

You see, conditions like heart problems generally aren’t “here today, gone tomorrow” affairs. If you have an issue with your ticker and have a prescription for meds related to that condition, you probably aren’t dealing with a passing situation. If you’re like most people, you’ll need to take your daily pills for a long, long time. You might be taking them right up until the end of your life.

If you’re spending a fortune on your medications, the odds that you’re going to skip your medication go up. You might forego your meds because your prescription ran out and you don’t have the cash to fill it. You might skip an occasional dose of your medication in order to “make it stretch” between trips to the pharmacy.

When you can get those same drugs for pennies on the dollar, you keep your prescription filled. You follow your doctor’s orders. You adhere to the program, giving yourself the very best chance to stay healthy.

The JAMA researcher’s conclusions aren’t eye-popping new scholarship. They do, however, add to the mounting pile of evidence favoring the use of generic prescription drugs.

To put it into basic economic terms, there is a lot of elasticity in the demand for drugs on a consumer level – regardless of the demand in terms of medical needs. Prices make a difference. When you can find a way for someone who doesn’t occupy one of the top rungs on the socioeconomic ladder to get his or her prescription drugs at an eighty percent savings, they’re more likely to comply with doctor’s orders.

Generics offer the best way to achieve those cost-savings. The drugs aren’t any different from the name brand alternative in terms of content or efficacy. They’re just cheaper. And that’s enough to make them a powerful means of improving health.

Don’t take our word for it.  Ask the reporters, doctors and even the Harvard research team. They’ll tell you the same thing.