Misleading packaging

I was recommended to take Imodium for IBS by my doctor. I paid in the region of £5.00 for a packet, then we found in Sainsbury's an identical number of tablets with the same ingredients for 99p - a result.

Some tablets are rock hard. Maybe the way they are manufactured makes others softer and they really do break down faster and get to work sooner, although they contain the same amount of the same drug? I know nothing about how they are made, so that is very much a maybe.

I guess it depends what they mean by fast-acting, eloethan. Also, charging more than what? The generic kind? No, I don't think it's misleading but I do think the intention is to grab people's attention and money, for instance the attention of someone with a migraine headache, or period pains, so they mention those on the box. That's just marketing. That's how it's done. I reckon all adults should be able to suss that companies will try to get as much money out of them as they can. My dad used to say, the cost of something is "whatever the suckers will pay". Don't read that wrongly; he was saying it bitterly. I'm not saying it's totally acceptable. I'm just saying it's reality and if the companies doing it aren't breaking the law (i.e. lying to us) there's no point whining about it.

Re your point about being able to 'trust' what it says on the box, I'm sure they would be prosecuted if they were saying anything actually untrue. We do have some standards and laws to hold marketeers to.

'...so serious that it could bring down the German government...'

A more than slight exaggeration, I think!

petra. I like you
I wonder if I have annoyed you in some way with something I have written?
Would you like to say what? Can we sort it?
Happy to try.
Perhaps you have misunderstood something I said?

He listens to more news than I do. And different news.
He hasnt mentioned Volkswagen.

I just asked him if he has heard of it, and he said yes.

Is it really that big of a deal?
I really dont think that big corporations are spotless. Sad, but there we are.
And sometimes scandals bring down governements. Again, not that unheard of.

Soontobe. Do I take it that your Husband is the same, ie, doesn't listen to news. Because when the shit hit the fan about Volkswagen it was HUGE.
Now if I'd been on another planet all day and not heard the news (wouldn't happen) my OH would have mentioned it. Or do you both inhabit this strange bubble.

Not on a regular basis.
Read newspapers on an irreglar basis.
I see news channels from different countries on an irregular basis too.
The car emissions thing I obviously missed.
Occasionally celebrities or famous people die and that passes me by too.

Soontbe Do you never listen to the news?

The NHS clearly need a good information campaign about generic drugs.
It would upset the big Pharma companies though.
Pfizer spent $1.1 million dollars advertising drugs last year.

No petra, not heard of it.
I do bury my head about all things car related[I tell DH if there is a warning light, and that is it]. Oh and triple check that I dont get mixed up with petrol and diesel.

I willo google about Volkswagon.

Or as DH always says 'Nothing acts faster than A*****n so take nothing!'

Eloethan "fast acting" . Or "nothing acts faster than X" is just what it says. It is not claiming it's the fastest or how fast so it is not legally misleading advertising.

It is question of "caveat emptor" buyer beware!

A prime example of why we should always read any adverts that catch our eye carefully and think about what exactly they are implying.

Also if we are taking medication we should always read the instructions to get an idea how they work which is usually simply explained. It pays to be aware of what medication we are stuffing into our bodies and what they are supposed to do.

To be sceptical of such claims is important if we want to keep informed about anything. Newspaper spin and speculation included.
They should teach these skills in schools along with financial skills about pay day loans and such like. Inform our kids and get them to question things.

Soontobe. You haven't heard anything about car emmissions!!!! Are you serious. There's this little car company called Volkswagen that's been lying to the whole world and is so serious that it could bring down the German government and you haven't heard of it. Words fail me.

At the moment the cheapest paracetamol caplets I can find are from Aldi at 19p for a packet of 16. Panadol, with exactly the same contents, costs more than 5 times as much. Why does anyone buy it?

I always buy the cheapest paracetamol tablets available from supermarkets, at the end of the day they work exactly the same as the expensive tablets. I rarely use painkillers so generic is fine. Long term users of painkillers tend to get used to them and will not get the same relief from the same dosage.

thatbags So presenting exactly the same product in two different types of packaging, one bearing the claim that it is "fast acting" - and charging more for that product - isn't misleading? I believe it is intentionally misleading and the only reason for doing it is to get more money out of someone whilst providing nothing extra for the higher charge.

There are so many examples of these sorts of questionable practices and I find it amazing that you deem them to be acceptable.

I notice that you use terms like "opioid" and "anti-inflammatory", which means that you have more knowledge of the subject than a lot of people. The more education and knowledge a person has, the more wary they are of marketing techniques and the more ability they have to dig a bit deeper. Why should we not be able to trust manufacturers' claims and why should we accept that they will use any device in order to make more money - with the onus being on us to detect such devious practices?

I agree thatbags- us the customers also have a responsibility to inform ourselves and read the labels- and make informed choices.

I always ask for the simplest form and cheapest paracetamol and ipobrufen- in larger amounts- as they are just effective. People buy all sorts of products with a massive mark up totally un-necessarily, like bottled water for instance. A choice.

So the problem is not that people are being misled but that people don't or won't understand the information that is freely available.

I'm a bit puzzled as to any confusion caused by something that is sold as effective against migraine and period pains. Why wouldn't a painkiller be expected to help with pain caused by different things? It's still pain and painkillers do not vary all that much (yes, I know about different types, but we're essentially talking about over the counter opioid types and antiinflammatory types here) in how they tackle the sensation of pain.

Yes, that's what the news items said crun - check the licence number and all products with that licence number will be exactly the same.

"One painkiller was described on the packet as "fast acting" but it was no different from a product under the same brand that had no such "fast acting" description. One painkiller was labelled "for the treatment of migraine" and the very same painkiller was labelled "for the treatment of period pain". "

Check the product licence number. If it's the same number, it the same product.

"Even branded very expensive medications are sold cheaper to other countries by the pharmaceutical companies."

Wouldn't it be a scandal if they weren't? AFAIK there was a lot of negotiating and arm twisting went on to get them to discount expensive drugs to poor countries who couldn't otherwise afford them.

There are some meds where the NHS advise not to switch the manufacturer. My Diltiazem is one.

www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Medicinesinfo/Pages/Brandnamesandgenerics.aspx

If nothing else some of this stuff shows how effective the placebo effect is in medicine.

To be fair, some prescribed tablets can differ in their effect purely by the coating (I'm not talking about over the counter remedies).

I did have an adverse reaction to one particular brand of my regular medication and my GP said it was quite common. However, GPs can't prescribe a certain brand, it depends on whatever the dispensing chemist has in stock.

Some people do get a placebo effect from the branded products and do actually get a better result from them. I'm quite happy with bog standard generic. I recently saw a man throwing a fit in the pharmacy because his regular pills had come from a different supplier and the packet was a different colour!. The pharmacist did his best but couldn't really convince him that they were the same thing.

I saw a doctor on TV recently saying not to rush out and buy expensive cold and flu cures, but to think about what symptoms you have. If your cold gives you a headache take a painkiller; if you have a stuffed up nose use a decongestant - you don't necessarily need all the ingredients in the cold cure.

Ana you can buy more Paracetamol (64 or96 ) over the counter in this country, I've been doing it for the last 3 years. It has to be approved by the pharmacist but not a problem in Boots, supermarkets with prescribing pharmacists or chemists.