Ohio: Generic AEDs: Therapeutic Substitution Lawsuit for Generic Anti Epileptic Drug : Mylan Keppra

According to a recent news report by ABC-TV, 15 percent of prescriptions are switched by pharmacies. For instance, your doctor may prescribe brand name Keppra which is an anticonvulsant drug for epilepsy but at the pharmacy, you are given Mylan generic product for epilepsy.

Unfortunately, two-thirds of the people pay for the drug and take the drug without realizing that there has been a switch from brand name Keppra to Mylan’s generic drug. This is just plain wrong and dangerous for particularly, people with epilepsy.

This practice of switching drugs is called therapeutic substitution. Therapeutic substitution is based on the assumption that drugs within the same therapeutic class are medically interchangeable because their mechanisms of action do not differ significantly, even though they are not chemically the same.

The practice is legal in most states. Pharmacies do this because the profit margin is greater. Therapeutic substitution poses serious health and safety risks to people taking certain seizure preventative medications while interfering with appropriate medical decisions made between a doctor and his or her patient.

A patient usually finds out the hard way that a medication has been switched. Serious side effects and breakthrough seizures may result from going from a brand name AED to a generic AED or from going from one generic to another generic AED.

What’s an Ohio epileptic patient to do?

Have you or a family member suffered serious side effects or a breakthrough seizure because you were not informed of a therapeutic substitution or your doctor was not informed? If the answer is yes – please contact the Ohio personal injury lawyers to find out if you’re entitled to an Ohio unsafe drug lawsuit.