Brand or Generic Medicine: Does it Matter? Yes! If You’re in the Hospital

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Ask Carrie Scott if brand or generic medicine makes a difference.  Unfortunately, she learned the hard way, and not only did it cost her, a left arm, but also malpractice and punitive damages as a result of choosing generic over brand in the hospital.

From a moral standpoint, the verdict is still out as to, at what juncture did the hospital staff ask her if she wanted brand or generic. Can you remember being admitted to the hospital for any kind of procedure and the staff asks you whether you wanted brand or generic medication?

Chances are, however, everyone that reads this article will be more informed in the future and will request only “brand medication” when going into a healthcare facility.

In 2208,  Carrie Scott , 78, went to  J. Paul Jones Hospital for rectal bleeding and woke up without her  left arm. Days later, she returned home in Camden, Alabama, with only one arm after a nurse administered the “generic form of Phenergan”, which “should be injected into a muscle, by IV, pushed into a vein.”

Carrie Scott, 78, sued the “generic’s manufacturer, Baxter Healthcare,” claiming that the instructions for injecting the drug left room for the hospital’s error, which led to the loss of her left arm to gangrene. “The manufacturer should have warned medical personnel how to properly administer the drug,” says Leila Watson, Scott’s attorney.

 But Scott’s lawsuit and nearly 50 others have been dismissed:

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last June that “generic drug makers” cannot be sued under state law for failing to warn patients about a drug’s dangerous side effects as long as their labels follow those of the brand-name counterparts, as required by federal law.

 

That holds true even if a generic maker knows its label hasn’t been updated with newly surfaced safety problems.

Approximately, 76 percent of older Americans take two or more prescription drugs, 80 percent of which are “generic,” according to the Food and Drug Administration.

If Scott had been injected with the brand-name drug, she could have continued in her lawsuit. But it was not the case.

“I wish I had been able to check it out before they gave it to me,” Scott says, (which indicates to me that she was never given a choice between “brand “or “generic”) If I had known the difference, I would have gotten the brand name.

Comment:

I don’t know about you but from this point on ….. Brand medicine all the way for me!!!

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Supreme Court expected to rule on Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in coming days

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The court is considering four key questions:

1. Does the law overstep federal authority, particularly with
the “Individual Mandate”

2. Must the entire Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act be
scrapped if that key provision is unconstitutional?

3. Are the lawsuits brought by the states and other petitioners
barred under the Anti-Injunction Act?

4 Are states being “coerced” by the federal government to expand
their share of Medical costs and administration, with the risk
of losing that funding if they refuse?

Everything hinges on the mandate, also known as the “minimum coverage” or “must-buy” provision. It is the key funding mechanism – the “affordable” aspect of the Patient and Affordable Care Act – that makes most of the other 450 or so provisions possible.

It would require nearly all Americans to buy some form of health insurance beginning in 2014 or face financial problems. May the federal government, under the Constitution’s Commerce Clause, regulate economic “inactivity”?

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