Generic Medication Fraud

Potentially critical generic meds warning. To quote my initial source:

"tl;dr: If you, your loved one or your patients are on generics of Prozac, Ativan, Seroquel, Wellbutrin, Tranxene, Aricept or a whole bunch of meds for somatic conditions, and weren't/aren't responding or had adverse reactions, it may be attributable to bogus meds. The extent of the corruption uncovered already staggers the imagination and is still unfolding."

Folks, the rest of this is a long read, but if you're taking or prescribing generic meds, it looks like there's rather a fraud scandal brewing where generic versions of some drugs prepared by the company Teva are behaving differently than they should under some cases, and generic versions of some drugs prepared by Ranbaxy.

My initial source - and where to go for the long, professionally informed read - for this bloody awful mess is here: http://siderea.livejournal.com/1028641.html - they're one of the few people I know whose research capabilities are as solid as mine, and they're in the industry as a prescriber.

They're providing piles of source material for you to do your own research, and their initial source - the breaking news variety - was via Metafilter: http://www.metafilter.com/128203/Even-better-than-the-real-thing - the biq quote right at the top of that article that should probably grab your eye is: "Widespread fraud has been discovered in the case of an Indian generic drug manufacturer that makes generic Lipitor (atorvastatin calcium) and many other drugs. Ranbaxy has 'pleaded guilty to seven federal criminal counts of selling adulterated drugs with intent to defraud.'"

From Siderea's research - their source this time being: http://www.fda.gov/AboutFDA/CentersOffices/OfficeofMedicalProductsandTobacco/CDER/ucm126391.htm the FDA, Ranbaxy is selling the following in the US - and please forgive my crappy copy/paste:

Ranbaxy sells the following generic medications in the United States:
Generic Brand name original condition it treats
Acyclovir Zovirax herpes virus
Allopurinol Zyloprim gout
Amlodipine/Atorvastatin Caduet high blood pressure/high cholesterol
Atenolol Tenormin chest pain and high blood pressure
Atorvastatin Lipitor high cholesterol
Benazepril Lotensin high blood pressure, congestive heart failure, kidney failure
Calcitriol Rocaltrol low blood calcium
Cevimeline HCI Evoxac dry mouth
Chloroquine Phosphate Aralen malaria
Clindamycin HCl AntiRobe bacterial infection
Clorazepate Dipotassium tranxene anxiety and insomnia
Donepezil HCI Aricept Alzheimer’s disease
Doxycycline Monohydrate Monodox bacterial infections
Felodipine Plendil high blood pressure
Fenofibratetricor ??? high cholesterol
Fluoxetine Prozac depression
Furosemide Lasix edema and congestive heart failure
Hydroxychloroquine Sulfate Plaquenil acute malaria
Lisinopril Prinivil high blood pressure
Lorazepam Ativan anxiety
Metoprolol Tartrate Toprol XL high blood pressure
Midazolam HCL Versed sedative
Minocycline Minocin acne and urinary tract infections
Ondansetron Zofran nausea
Pioglitazone Actos diabetes
Sumatriptan Succinate Imitrex migraines
Valacyclovir HCl Valtrex herpes

There's a lot - seriously a lot - more details via Siderea's post. The part that was most useful to me is an identification tool for meds-in-hand - if you don't know what you're taking, but have an example pill, this pill identification tool may help: http://www.drugs.com/pill_identification.html