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Louis Lasagna, MD

JAMA. 1978;239(18):1888.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text PDF and any section headings.

Politicians, consumers, and third-party payers are all interested in saving money on drugs, although drug costs represent only approximately 10% of the national health bill. Most people naturally object to paying more money for anything than they have to, but few would argue that inadequate cheap drugs are preferable to dependable but more expensive versions.

Passions run high about generic substitution. The debate has not been helped by two flimflams perpetrated on the public— the notion that generic prescribing invariably leads to savings for the consumer and the readiness with which everyone ignores the importance of the pharmacist in determining prescription prices.

Several studies testify to the fact that a person always encounters a substantial range in drug prices if he takes the same prescription to different drugstores in the same city, whether the prescription is for a brand name or a generic drug. Clearly, generic prescribing that has as . . . [Full Text PDF of this Article]

Author Affiliations
University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry Rochester, NY

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