Word: aspirin
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...Aspirin is just plain aspirin and nothing else," says Wisconsin's Senator Gaylord Nelson. It is just that, he claims, regardless of how much it costs and whether it carries a famous brand name. Nelson goes further: he believes that prescription drugs for serious illnesses should be dispensed, not under a manufacturer's trademark name, but under the "generic" (common chemical) name, which usually carries a lower price tag. Whether generic and brand-name drugs are really medically equivalent has been debated before Nelson's Senate Monopoly Subcommittee for almost two months now. So far, no witness...
...case of over-the-counter aspirin, even so crude a test device as the irritable stomach of a man with a hangover will sometimes show a distinction: two five-grain tablets of one brand, especially from a half-empty bottle that has been in the medicine chest for a cou ple of months, will promptly give him heartburn, whereas the same dose of another brand may have no such effect...
...Trace of Water. The first aspirin was made by Germany's Bayer company, and its U.S. descendant (a division of Sterling Drug Inc.) today charges six to ten times as much as no-name brands. To justify the difference, Bayer contrasts U.S.P.*minimum standards with its own. Before tableting, says U.S.P., the basic chemical must be in tabular or needlelike crystals or crystalline powder; to produce a dependable dissolving rate, Bayer requires a special flake shape and needle shape (slender, tapered at both ends). U.S.P. permits .5% moisture and weight loss on drying; Bayer will tolerate none. U.S.P. allows...
...turn salicylic acid into acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin), a compound related to acetic acid is used. If the raw aspirin is then cleared of impurities by washing with water, any remaining water will react to create a minute quantity of acetic acid-vinegar. This accounts for the vinegary odor and some of the irritating effect of much fresh aspirin and of most old aspirin. So Bayer uses a more costly, water-free process...
...into animals, all cause the release of an enzyme which is itself inflammatory-though all are prescribed as anti-inflammatory medicines in arthritis. This, he declared, is puzzling to the point of being "intellectually unpleasant." Dr. Arthur Bogden of Worcester, Mass., made the paradox still sharper. If hydrocortisone and aspirin are given to laboratory rats under certain conditions before they have arthritis, both have anti-inflammatory action. But after the rats have their arthritis, the hydrocortisone raises a certain enzyme level used as a measure of drug activity, while aspirin pushes it down. How to determine, in advance, what effects...