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 Lost in Translation: The potential danger of filling U.S. prescriptions abroad
During the last year, the FDA has issued a warning to healthcare professionals and consumers that filling their prescriptions in a foreign country could have detrimental effects due to confusion with drug names that could lead someone to take the wrong medication for their condition. Furthermore, a FDA investigation found that even those medications that are marketed under the same or similar names as those sold in the United States, often have different active ingredients. The ingestion of a medication with a different active ingredient at the least will not help but it quite possibly produces serious adverse reactions.
There are 105 U.S. brand names that have similar names as foreign brand names used for products with different active ingredients. The FDA also found 18 foreign drug products that use the same brand names as a FDA approved group but contain a different active ingredient therapy. Some examples of medications that have identical U.S. and foreign brand names but different active ingredients are Aldactone, Calan, Cervidil, Cloderm, Diasorb, Dilacor, and Flomax. Some of the medications that have similar names as foreign brand names but have different active ingredients are Accupril, Allegra, Allegra D, Cardizem, Cedax, Dilantin, Diuril, Flomax, and Lanoxin.
Three quarters of all prescriptions written in the United States are written in their brand name and not their scientific name. The FDA has taken different steps to prevent this problem from happening in the United States. However, a universal system to implement this safeguard on a more global basis does not exist. Furthermore, there is no system to ensure that new brand names are sufficiently different from new ones that exist in the world.
References:
FDA Public Health Advisory January 2006. Consumers Filling U.S. Prescriptions Abroad May Get the Wrong Active Ingredient because of Confusing Drug Names. Retrieved January 2007: www.fda.goc/oc/opacom/reports/confusingnames.html
FDA Cautions Consumers Against Filling U.S. Prescriptions Abroad. Retrieved from: www.fda.gov.bbs/topics/news/2006/NEW01295.html.
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