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What is it with Americans and their refusal to refer to medication by name, instead insisting on local brand names that the rest of us have to google to work out what the fuck they’re going on about?
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Sarah Brown
@Becky is not a bear As @Ghost of Hope said, paracetamol is not a brand name. That would be “Panadol”, which nobody calls it.
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Sarah Brown

@Ghost of Hope @Becky is not a bear para-hydroxyacetanilide

From which you get PARA-hydroxyaCETAnilide and then “mol” because it’s a phenol derivative,

Or para-hydroxyACETAnilide and then “minophen” because it’s an amine and phenol derivative.

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Sarah Brown
@Becky is not a bear @Ghost of Hope Paracetamol was first used as a human drug in Germany.
in reply to Sarah Brown

@Becky is not a bear @Ghost of Hope But I digress: citalopram, cetirizine, montelukast, etc.

Unambiguous. These are the names of drugs.

Celexa, Zirtek, Singulair. These are product names, and often they are hyper local, or randomly change what’s in them and call it the same thing.

I get why the drugs companies do it. They don’t want you buying generics whereas health systems in the rest of the planet are state funded and don’t put up with being held to ransom by big pharma.

But it’s a pain in the arse for the rest of us, and also potentially dangerous when they decide they’re going to grow the brand by calling a bunch of different drugs the same thing.

in reply to Sarah Brown

This is what I’m talking about. Those are product names. Those drugs are called “montelukast” and “cetirizine”. I do wish they’d pack this bullshit in.
in reply to Sarah Brown

Yeah, if an American said "Zoloft" instead of Sertraline, I'd be lost at the first fucking roundabout. :blobdizzy:
in reply to Sarah Brown

Seems unlikely they will, it would be like expecting Brits to stop referring to calpol or savlon or lemsip or alka seltzer or hoovers or biros.
in reply to Ailbhe

Calpol and lemsip are not like for like. Those are products that include one or more drugs (lemsip is a cocktail), but the drug isn’t the entirety of what they are.

The yanks do it for everything. Like, in the example quoted, literally any antihistamine will do, but they rush straight to one specific brand of one specific antihistamine.

The only true counter example I’m aware of is salbutamol, which we almost exclusively refer to as “ventolin”, but they call “albuterol”

in reply to Sarah Brown

Like, have heard of Americans going on holiday, getting unwell, and choosing to stay in pain because the pharmacy has ibuprofen, not “Advil”.
in reply to Sarah Brown

I've heard similar about Brits, not just about medicines or childcare products. I'm pretty sure Irish people do it too but I don't notice because it's in my childhood vocabulary. I tend not to do it with prescription meds but do with OTC things, especially since moving here.
in reply to Ailbhe

it has only really been a problem for me when doctors and nurses do it TBH. If they'd stop I would be much happier.
in reply to Sarah Brown

My favorite is when there are more than one formulation using the brandname. Or when people call aspirin “Bayer” as if that’s the only drug they make.
in reply to : j@fabrica:~/src; :t_blink:

Aspirin is a weird one because is started out as a trademark and then Bayer lost it for being naughty.

And acetyl salicylic acid is a mouthful.