this is usually 'used' in critical meds which a patient has been stabilised on like epileptic medications and some other narrow therapeutic meds as different brands could contain different excipeints which can change the pharmacokinetics and bioavailability of it.
but for the most medications usually a substitution can be made.

well, i think it could be a good step since it would give the patient more information about the medication and other medical personnel(pharm, nurse. other docs ect) can easily know what they were taking without going through trial and error

but im more for mandatory proper labelling of the medications given out for the immediate future really since the prescription system is still a very long way off from what i can tell. make it a law instead of a 'good practise guideline' which doctors can choose to not follow.....



i think they touch on them briefly in meds course but from what i know, no where near enough to make a judgement call for most doctors (unless they have good amount of experience or they specialise in the field).
i have a lecturer who actually often get invitations from med schools to do short lecture on these topics to try to raise awareness on these... so that should tell you something.

bioavailability was the 'old standard' measurement (not sure how long ago) but now they rely on bioequivalence and therapeutic equivalence as well(in which this would prove that a substitution from innovator's brand to generics can be done).



*btw, while i was away from the internets for the past 1 week, this thread has grown like 10 pages in which i cant really be bothered to read through all of it. but from the last 2 page or so, all i see unproductive repetition and petty bickering until wakky started to step in. i would appreciate it if the discussion could be done in a more civilised and interlectually 'rewarding' manner

This post has been edited by mr lappy: Dec 21 2008, 08:22 AM