Just wanted to say...

[sroni]

I'm still alive. Getting used to Ireland. Ireland is awesome. Fiance's little sister passed what we're calling The Plague onto both of us, so we've been coughing like crazy. Also, it turns out that Acetaminophen is called Paracetamol over here, so I took some not realizing that I'm ALLERGIC TO IT. Spent the next three hours puking.

Anybody know why it's called something else everywhere in the world NOT the States and Canada? Because I can't find that one out.

Anyway. I'm alive. It's one thirty in the morning, so I'm going to sleep.

Comments

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

I would assume it's a legal thing involving brand names. More importantly, hope you feel better soon!

[sroni.livejournal.com]

I'm actually already feeling a lot better! Still coughing, but no longer that icky sick feeling, and my throat's not doing as badly as it was. Still coughing up the nuclear green junk, though.

The legal part's the part that doesn't make sense to me, though. The brand of the medicine is Tylenol in the States and Canada, and Paretemol over here (or something like that). So why not keep the name of the drug itself (like Aleve is the brand for Naproxxen Sodium, or however you spell it but you can still find Naproxxen all over the place, even if you're having to read the ingredients to find it) the same and just change the names of the brands? Because otherwise, you have people like me taking meds they don't know they're allergic to because the medicine they've always had a reaction to and scan the ingredients list of everything just to make sure isn't showing up on the med they take.

Yeah. Not happy about that.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

That nuclear green stuff is the worst.

Maybe the companies that make the meds also make anti-allergy medicines, and they're trying to drum up business ...? Boy, I sure hope that's not it. But we've been dealing with a lot of new meds lately, and I do know just what you mean.

[nothorse.livejournal.com]

Because the US has a significant attitude problem when it comes to international standards? Basically there's a committee that gives names to medical substances that are trademark free and can be used in scientific literature.

Internationally there's the International Nonproprietary Name (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Nonproprietary_Name), given out by the WHO. The US just hast to do it different and they have the United States Adopted Name (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Adopted_Name).

Probably a historic artefact, meaning sometime earlier every country had their own generic names, and adopted the INN, except for the USA (and Canada by virtue/vice of being in the same market).