Malcolm Gladwell (of Blink and Tipping point fame) recently blogged about the prices of brand name drugs vs generic drugs.
Which reminded me of a recent discovery by Shirley about that same distinction.
Over the weekend, Shirley's stomach was feeling unwell and at the pharmacy, she came across imodium and compared it with a generic no-brand drug but with the same ingredients.
Having purchased the no-brand drug, she found it just as effective as imodium would have been, at less than half the price.
This is not to say that everyone should switch to generic drugs immediately. Big brand drug companies invest ka-gillions of dollars to research and fund drug development and they should be supported. Of course, their patent protections give them about 8-10 years to capitalise on the drug before it comes under fire from the generics.
But for people who know, you might want to read the labels of your 'favourite' medications and shop around a little.
Also, for those who were confused about my last post. My 'excitement' was a sarcastic remark. We spent the weekend putting up curtains. It's kind of hard to be excited about curtains. At least for us. Still. Curtains were nice.
Had a friend's birthday dinner at Bluefire in Melbourne Central last night. Avoided (despite great temptation) the Churrascaria option which most people chose, only because I took a week to recover from my last dinner at Brazil Churrascaria at 6th Ave in Sing. There's so much meat (don't get me started about the organs), you'd expect to expunge some kind of baby animal from your innards at the end of the meal.
Halfway through the week already. This week is breezing by fairly comfortably. Looking forward to having visitors again at the end of the month through to mid sep.
