Is it really a cure? Free medicines for beneficiaries: originals and generics. Active ingredient: polyenylphosphatidylcholine. Other names: "Essentiale forte", "Essentiale N", "Essentiale forte N"
The indiscriminate sale of medicines has become commonplace. Advertising of medicines does its job, because very often people buy another guarantor of health in a pharmacy, not even suspecting that this medicine is completely useless.
Medicine has gone commercial as a chance to cash in on people who dream of being healthy, beautiful, and living as long as possible.
This dream is quite natural and understandable, but it is necessary to approach its fulfillment from a completely different angle, he believes.
The truth about drugs
Alexander Myasnikov, ex-chief physician of the Kremlin Hospital, became famous thanks to his numerous appearances on radio and television. His book “How to Live Beyond 50 Years” dispels all illusions about various drugs: no matter how sad it is to admit it, you can’t fix your health with pills alone.
Some drugs are even harmful, some have no therapeutic effect, but they are quite expensive. Medicines are a business! It is worth remembering this for everyone who goes to see a doctor or makes another raid on a pharmacy.
In his book, the doctor pays special attention to immunomodulators which are now extremely fashionable. Immunity-boosting drugs are a myth.
If they worked, people with AIDS would have been cured long ago. You need to be wise in any medical research - it is better to spend extra money on healthy eating or playing sports, but checking your level is nonsense.
Dr. Myasnikov captivates with his honesty, he is a rare example of a doctor who respects the Hippocratic oath. How to boost immunity? With the help of drugs - no way!
Only a healthy lifestyle, giving up bad habits and food, hardening and reducing the overall level of stress can work a miracle - activate the body's defenses. Neither an injection nor a pill can do this!
separate topic - vegetovascular dystonia. Everyone loves to put this diagnosis in a row, because it covers a lot of common symptoms: heart palpitations, cold hands, dizziness, insomnia ...
These are alarming indicators that may indicate serious illnesses. A doctor has no right to make such a simple diagnosis and hope that all disorders in the body will disappear on their own.
Also, the doctor should not prescribe common antidepressants without a good reason - trade in them goes beyond all acceptable limits. It’s terrible to understand that it’s quite difficult to find a specialist who is not interested in cashing in on someone else’s grief ...
If you have a friend of an intelligent doctor - appreciate him, do not lose touch with him. Honesty and decency are indispensable qualities for a doctor! Only such a person will treat you, not your wallet. Tell everyone about this article, because each of us is a potential patient.
British scientist, manager of a research project in the field of oncogenomics Kat Ennis explains whether there is a cure for cancer and whether it is beneficial for someone to hide it. We invite you to read the text of her article in The Guardian, which caused a lot of discussion.
Many commentators on the Internet - as well as some of my casual society acquaintances - believe in a worldwide conspiracy of scientists who, out of greed, prevent the creation of a "cure for cancer." This is complete nonsense.
I remember well the first time I found out that I was part of a worldwide conspiracy, making millions of dollars and laughing sadistically at the suffering of the dying. It was in 2004, at a friend's Christmas party, where I introduced myself to his new neighbor as a researcher at the British Columbia Cancer Research Agency.
As a newly minted graduate student, I then earned 35,000 Canadian dollars (about 1 million rubles. - BG) a year, so I was already curious to hear about millions. But most of all, I was struck by the anger with which the interlocutor attacked me: pointing his finger in my face, he loudly denounced "these scientists of yours who squeezed a 100% cure for cancer" ("some kind of vitamins compressed with proteins," I quote literally) - they say, looking at millions of deaths, we calmly calculate the benefits from the sale of "useless poison", which we sell to the unfortunate patients.
This guest—when he punched my husband in the chest, determined to make sure I was safe—was expelled from the party and will never be invited to that house again. But he's far from the only conspiracy theorist. On the net you come across it everywhere - so often and densely that even reading about the latest achievements of my own research institute, I cannot get rid of the premonition of imminent disaster, which only grows stronger as we move towards the end of the text.
I don't suffer from dementia, so I'm fully aware that things are moving depressingly slowly (albeit steadily), and the big pharmaceutical companies are far from perfect. At the same time, as someone who has spent 12 years in cancer research (first as a research assistant, and then as a research project manager and grant maker), I understand why solving the problem is so difficult. Roughly speaking, killing cancer cells while leaving healthy ones alive is a task of about the same order as winning a battle in which the infantry on both sides are dressed in the same uniforms, and only some of the enemy soldiers have slightly different buttons, others - the laces are a little longer, the third ones have a little more lace on their underwear, and they all know how to deftly change clothes right in the course of the battle.
As such, it is impossible to obtain a “cancer cure” - we learn to recognize the disease as early as possible, look for more effective methods of treatment, and, in some cases, like creating a vaccine against the human papillomavirus, come up with ways of more reliable prevention. Much remains to be done, however, a lot of success has been achieved: for those interested in the topic, I sincerely recommend the excellent book by Siddhartha Mukherjee "The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer" ("The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer").
Whether in the labs of pharmaceutical corporations or, like me, in academic research institutes, experts I know personally work, the primary motivation is to contribute to the fight against cancer. Many people came to this area after someone close to them had cancer - when I was 15, my grandmother died of cancer.
I know professionals who have turned down much more rewarding careers in medicine for research work; I myself, after working for a couple of years in a permanent position in a biotech company without much interest, returned with a loss in money to the world of academic science and short-term work contracts. Believe me, many of my colleagues could earn much more by choosing another occupation. Yes, sometimes brilliant careers are also made in scientific institutes - but their brilliance is not in money, but in fame.
Here's an even stronger argument: if we really had a secret panacea, none of our colleagues and relatives would ever die of cancer. And this is not so. Among recent high-profile examples: Dr. Ralph Steinman died of pancreatic cancer, a few days before he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2011, and this despite all attempts to overcome the disease with the help of his own discoveries. As for the simpler people, several dozen employees of pharmaceutical corporations and academic research centers I know have either been diagnosed with cancer or have claimed someone close to them.
So what? Secret cure? Global Conspiracy?
Well, how about.
We really managed to bribe everyone without exception who had anything to do with clinical research (without which it would be impossible to make sure that the drug works), we shut the mouths of all patients, their relatives and friends, nurses, doctors, operators who injected into computer results of observations for patients, medical statistics, graduate students and everything else. We cut coupons from the sale of chemotherapy drugs we have created and, in order not to lose profits, in case of illness we ourselves do not take the secret cure for cancer and do not give it to friends or family. For the sake of our homes, we easily sacrifice millions of lives - after all, if we reveal to the world that cancer can be cured, our specially trained gang will have nothing to do, there will no longer be even the most overwhelming sore for them. And none of us has yet claimed the Nobel Prize, the universal love and admiration that would be due to him as the creator of a cure for cancer! Do you see now how unspeakably lucky we are?
And yes, by the way: pharmaceutical companies are going bankrupt one after another, and all because a whole army of lawyers, experienced intellectual property specialists, was not enough to find a way to patent magnesium sulfate - or some other miracle drug at a bargain price flooded the tapes this week facebook.
But shhhh! Not a word to anyone...
People do indeed use marijuana as a drug, not just as an excuse to enjoy themselves, according to a new study.
States that have legalized medical marijuana tend to have significantly reduced prescriptions for diseases that cannabis can treat, says study leader W. David Bradford of the University of Georgia.
At the same time, there is no decrease in the number of prescriptions for drugs that treat conditions for which marijuana helps little or no help at all.
"There has been a significant shift in the drug use pattern since the states passed their medical marijuana laws," says Bradford.
Patients most commonly use medical marijuana for pain management, resulting in a large decrease in average daily doses of prescription pain medications. Given this, medical marijuana may play a role in reducing overdose deaths from opiates such as oxycodone (OxyContin), hydrocodone (Vicodin), morphine, and codeine.
"If you don't turn to opiates, you won't be on a path that can lead to abuse and death," says Bradford.
As part of the study, the researchers analyzed data from Medicare Part D, the federal prescription drug program for the elderly. The study included all Medicare Part D prescriptions from 2010 to 2013.
The researchers compared states that have legalized medical marijuana with those that have not, to see if access to it affects the use of other drugs.
The scientific team specifically looked at nine medical conditions for which marijuana could be considered as a substitute for pharmaceutical drugs - anxiety, depression, glaucoma, nausea, pain, psychosis, seizures, sleep disturbances and spasticity.
Chief Freelance Specialist Clinical Pharmacologist of the Moscow Department of Health, Deputy Director of the Center for Clinical Pharmacology of the Scientific Center for Expertise of Medicinal Products of the Ministry of Health of Russia, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor
The health department often receives complaints from beneficiaries: the doctor prescribed one medicine, but the pharmacy offers another. I was prescribed an expensive medicine, but they gave me a cheaper one. Most often, we are talking about replacing the original drug with a generic one - and for most ordinary patients, this replacement raises questions and concerns.
Understanding the issue of affordable drugs together with the chief freelance clinical pharmacologist of DZM Marina Vladimirovna Zhuravleva.
Situation 1. The doctor has always prescribed one drug for me, and now he has prescribed another. Says it's the same. Is it possible?
Yes, this is possible. Each drug has main active ingredient We take medicine for him. There are many drugs with the same active ingredient - for example, no-shpa and drotaverine (active ingredient - drotaverine hydrochloride), Enap and enalapril (active ingredient - enalapril), flucostat and diflucan (active ingredient - fluconazole).
Among all drugs with the same active substance, there is one original- the one that was developed and released first. The rest - generics(generics), they were released later, as the most accurate copies of the original.
Let's get back to your case. Here is one of two things: either your doctor used to prescribe you a drug by the name of the original, and now he prescribed a generic, or now he simply wrote the name of the main active ingredient of the drug (INN) in the prescription. It's perfectly legal.
HOW TO GET FREE DRUGS IN MOSCOW
Situation 2. The doctor prescribed one medicine, but the pharmacy gave another, cheaper one. Do they have a right to it? Is there a mistake on the part of the pharmacy worker here?
Each drug has an international non-proprietary name - INN. In fact, this is the name of the main active ingredient. There are more than three thousand such INNs, and there can be as many drugs containing the same substance as you like, from different manufacturers and from different countries.
Since 2016, by order of the Ministry of Health, doctors are required to prescribe medicines by INN, and not by the name of the original drug or generic. Thanks to this, each beneficiary, having come to the pharmacy with a prescription, can receive the drug he needs, in the form of an original or a generic.
If you were given a drug with the active ingredient that is indicated in your prescription, then there is no mistake.
You might also find it useful: LIST OF PHARMACIES WHERE YOU CAN OBTAIN MEDICINES FOR FREE ON A REDUCED PRECIPICE
Who makes the decision to replace the original drug with a generic?
Your doctor decides which drug is indicated for you. If in your case the original drug and the generic drug are equally effective for you, then they are, in fact, interchangeable. The doctor will prescribe the medicine according to the INN, and at the pharmacy they will give you the drug that was purchased with state budget money.
If it is important for your health to be treated with the original, the attending physician will reflect this in the prescription or give you special recommendations.
What is the main difference between the original and the generic?
The original drug is the one that was synthesized first and was the first to enter clinical practice. Its name, as a rule, is protected by a patent, and after the expiration of patent protection, other pharmaceutical companies have the right to produce generics - identical drugs, according to the same formula and technology, with the same strict quality control.
The originals may differ from generics only in excipients, but in terms of clinical efficacy and safety, all generics are completely identical to the original medicine.
If a generic is less effective during clinical trials, or there is doubt about its safety, this medicine simply does not enter the market. And even more so, citizens who have the right to free medicines receive only those medicines that have passed all the checks, are registered, and instructions for them have been approved.
But, surely, authentic medicines are better than analogues?
Not certainly in that way. Naturally, for manufacturers, the original drug is a reference, but at the same time, all generics must be as close as possible to its main properties of effectiveness. Only those drugs that correspond to the reference drug are registered and allowed for circulation.
There are cases when a generic is even more successful than the original in some ways - but in pharmacology there is no direct connection between the cost and quality of a medicine.
Then why do generics cost so much less than original drugs?
Firstly, not all generics cost much less. Sometimes the difference in price is quite small, and there are also generics that are more expensive than the original (this depends on where the medicine is produced and who is its manufacturer).
Secondly, for the original drug it is normal to cost more than generics. It was invented first, its creators - pioneers in pharmacology - spent a lot of effort and money on the development of the drug, clinical studies, tests. Sometimes the preparation of a new drug takes decades and costs billions of dollars. All this affects the cost of the drug. And generics follow the beaten path: their task is to reproduce the formula as accurately as possible. Much fewer clinical trials are required to test a generic drug.
Therefore, even domestic original drugs differ in price from generics: in whatever country the development was carried out, it cost effort and money.
Who can be consulted about the use of analogue drugs and generics?
Your main consultant is the attending physician. It is he who decides which drug to prescribe for you, whether you need the original, or you can solve the problem with the help of a generic. Be sure to ask your doctor questions if you have any: it is always better to ask than to be tormented by doubts.
One more request: please do not try to make a decision without the participation of the attending physician, do not prescribe medications for yourself without consulting a specialist. This is especially true for elderly citizens: in their anamnesis there is not one disease, but a whole tangle that is difficult even for a doctor to unravel. By self-medicating, choosing drugs for ourselves, we can sometimes help one system and seriously harm another.
In what cases is it worth striving to get the original drug prescribed and given out on benefits?
There is only one case in which you should seek to be prescribed the original: when you have an allergic reaction to a generic drug. And in this case, you don’t have to achieve either: the attending physician will prescribe the drug that will be safe and effective for you.
Is it true that only cheap drugs can be obtained free of charge?
No it is not true. Citizens belonging to a number of privileged categories (for example, cancer patients and patients with cystic fibrosis) receive absolutely any drugs, including the most expensive ones, free of charge or with a 50% discount.
In addition, the price of the most necessary medicines is regulated by the state. There is a list of vital and essential drugs for medical use (VED). Every year it is reviewed and approved by the Government of the Russian Federation. So, here, manufacturers simply do not have the opportunity to raise the price on them above that set by the state. In this sense, yes, the medicines from the list do not cost that much, and the state is able to provide them to all beneficiaries.
Is it true that many medicines are expensive mainly because they are produced abroad?
On the one hand, imported drugs, by definition, are more expensive than domestic ones. On the other hand, original drugs will always cost more than generics, no matter where they are produced.
Now many international pharmaceutical companies have local production in Russia: this significantly reduces the cost of medicines and makes innovative drugs more accessible.
Can a Russian drug manufacturer be trusted? Do they live up to international standards?
Domestic pharmacology has now risen to a very worthy level. I personally visit pharmaceutical plants and see with my own eyes how much we have grown in terms of the quality of drug production. The equipment is modern, fully complies with the GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) standard.
At the moment, the state program "Pharma 2020" is operating in Russia - a program for the development of the pharmaceutical industry until 2020. The main objective of the program is to establish the process of development and production of original Russian drugs. This is necessary, first of all, in order not to depend on foreign manufacturers. Currently, developments are being actively carried out in various fields, including rheumatology, oncology, and psychiatry.
In Ukraine, every fourth person dies from drugs. Why be surprised, because the word "pharmakon" in Greek means poison. And any of its derivatives should not be treated with disdain. About the rules of safe communication with medicines, "SG" talked with the head of the therapeutic department of polyclinic No. 1 Ruslana Naumova.
- Is it true that any medicine is a double-edged sword: on the one hand it heals, and on the other?Each drug has indications and contraindications. For example, one drug has a positive effect on the gastrointestinal tract, but negatively affects the immune system, another treats a cold, but negatively affects the liver.
It is believed that the body remembers each drug intake. Moreover, this memory is quite material: as a rule, metabolites (biological waste) of chemical compounds accumulate in adipose tissue and eventually manifest themselves as allergies, reduced immunity, problems with the liver, pancreas or kidneys (the excretory system suffers from drugs in the first place).
- In what cases it is necessary to take medicines? Should I endure a headache or not?
Headaches don't just happen. You always need to look for the cause of its appearance. It can be hypertension, migraine, atherosclerosis of cerebral vessels. It will hurt and stop - you should not be guided by this rule. It is imperative to find out the cause of the headache and eliminate it. During a viral illness, it is undesirable to bring down the temperature of 37.5 degrees, the body must fight. But if the patient feels unwell at this temperature, you can drink an antipyretic.
- How many medicines can be taken at the same time?
- You need to rely on a competent doctor. He will not prescribe more than necessary. There are patients suffering from serious diseases - such as myocardial infarction, ischemic stroke, cirrhosis of the liver. They have to take a huge amount of drugs. If they are assigned, then they must be accepted.
When four or more drugs are found in the body, only God knows what the consequences will be. Only one thing is obvious: the more drugs the patient takes, the higher the risk of side effects.
- What is the best way to take a pill?
- The safest choice is to drink the medicine with plain water. There are drugs that should be taken with milk. For example, in the treatment of tuberculosis. It is undesirable to drink medicines with mineral water, tea or coffee.
- What medicines do not combine?
The compatibility of the drug with other drugs should be indicated in the package leaflet. It is worth paying attention to this, because some medicines can enhance, weaken, and sometimes completely nullify the effect of other drugs. For example, in hypertension and diabetes, a certain group of drugs is not combined. Therefore, doctors select medicines for each patient individually.
- Is it possible to chew the pill to speed up the action of the pill?
A lot of blood vessels are concentrated in a person’s mouth, so some drugs placed under the tongue are quickly absorbed and enter the bloodstream. This is based on the action of certain medications, for example, nitroglycerin, which relieves a heart attack. Medicines coated with a special shell, as well as in capsules, must not be crushed or opened. They are designed to dissolve in the intestines, not in the stomach. This reduces their side effects.
What form of medicine is the safest?
The body of each patient is individual. Aspirin is suitable for some people, it may not be suitable for others. Any drug is not safe and can give an allergic reaction, regardless of the form in which it is prescribed: tablets, medicine, intramuscular or intravenous injections.
- Is it necessary to believe in medicine?
- You have to believe. The patient can be cured even psychologically. If you explain to the patient that this medicine will really help, and he believes, then the drug will definitely work.
- Is it true that the same drug can act differently on people of different age categories?
Undoubtedly. The average drug dose calculated for a 30-year-old person may not work, or it may be too high and dangerous for a patient over 70 years old. Especially if he has atherosclerotic vascular changes. Accordingly, what is shown to an elderly person can adversely affect a young body, especially a child.
- When taking antibiotics, the intestinal microflora is disturbed. What to do?
This does not happen in every patient. During treatment, we prescribe special preparations to the patient that normalize the intestinal microflora, and we recommend using products containing bifidobacteria, which have a positive effect on the functioning of the gastrointestinal tract.
- How relevant is the “three times a day after meals” drug regimen today?
Modern drugs act in the patient's body for a long time: 8, 12, 24, 48 hours, so they do not require frequent use.
- Why drugs can not be combined with alcohol?
- People who take drugs along with alcohol, as a rule, lead the wrong way of life, so they have a loosened nervous system and the wrong blood vessels. It is impossible to combine medication and alcohol. When alcohol is taken, spasm and vasodilation occur. This can result in the rapid death of the patient: thromboembolism, heart attack, stroke.
Today, most people try to be treated on their own, and only as a last resort go to see a doctor.
There are always a lot of people in our clinic. Mostly elderly people come to see doctors. Young people today pay little attention to their health, and this worries us. Diagnosis of diseases at this age makes it possible to prevent serious diseases later, especially hypertension.
