Are Generic Drugs Dangerous?

Generic drugs have long been pushed on American consumers as cost-effective alternatives to brand-name prescription medicines. But widespread manufacturing irregularities at drug factories overseas are raising troubling new questions about the safety of generics and whether they are putting Americans’ health at risk. 

A new analysis by the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research reveals extensive problems with the quality of generics produced by Indian pharmaceutical companies, which supply about 40 percent of the generic drugs sold in the U.S. Bureau investigators examined nearly 1,500 India-made drug samples collected from 22 cities and found that up to 10 percent of some medications contained insufficient levels of the key active ingredients — concentrations so low, in fact, that they would not be effective against the diseases they’re designed to treat.
 

This new research adds to a growing body of evidence that the generic drug industry, which supplies 85 percent of the drugs sold in the U.S., routinely violates basic quality control standards and ships sub-par medicines to the U.S. and other countries. 
 

What that means is that many patients prescribed generic drugs are not only getting ripped off, but may not be at risk because their medications are not treating the conditions they have, says renowned cardiologist Chauncey Crandall, M.D.

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