When doctors prescribe drugs by their brand names they can confidently expect that their patients will be given particular compounds by the pharmacist.For example, if they prescribe Brufen they can be confident that the pharmacist will dispense a formulation that contains ibuprofen.When patients buy drugs over the counter, however, matters may be more complicated.For example, if they buy tablets with the name Anadin on the box they may be buying a formulation that contains aspirin and caffeine; aspirin, caffeine, and quinine; aspirin, caffeine, and paracetamol; paracetamol alone; or even ibuprofen alone.Of course, these different formulations may have slightly different names, such as Anadin Extra for aspirin plus caffeine plus paracetamol --and Anadin Paracetamol for paracetamol alone; but it takes a high degree of awareness to realise, for example, that one of these contains aspirin while the other does not.In another example Aspro Paraclear contains paracetamol and not aspirin whereas Aspro Clear contains aspirin and not paracetamol.There are several similar examples of brand name drugs that are available over the counter under the same or closely similar names but that contain different drugs or combinations of drugs.The table lists these- both formulations for oral use and formulations for topical use-culled from an issue of Chemist and Dnuggist.1This list is by no means comprehensive.For example, I have omitted formulations for which differences are limited to what might be regarded as inactive excipients, such as sodium citrate in efferves- cent formulations.I have also omitted examples in
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J K Aronson (1994) studied this question.