Recently, a team from the Department of Neurology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Department of Medicine and Pharmacology had presented their assessment of the differences between generic anti-seizure medications and their brand name counterparts.

In the August issue of Annals of Neurology,the researchers tried to determine what the differences really were between taking name brand and generic epilepsy medications — if there was one, at all. The study was conducted with researchers reporting on 141 different generic antiepileptic medications that had been monitored in 258 studies of bio-equivalency. Bio-equivalency is a term that is used to describe how different drugs are like each other.

What the researchers found was that most generic anti-epileptic drugs offer the same delivery of the medication to the system as name brand drugs do. However, one thing that stood out was that the maximal concentration in the formulas was different. In the end, the researchers decided that regularly switching between the generic drugs had the potential to cause larger “changes in the drug concentration of a drug than the generic substitution of reference products.”

What makes this study important is because it shows healthcare professionals that switching between generic antiepileptic drugs can cause drastic changes to the drug levels. (This is important because it is often done.) You have to be careful about switching between difference generic drugs since you never know just what formula the patient is getting. Antiepileptic medications like Topamax (topamirate) are dangerous enough without risking changes with the formulas that this study suggests is possible.

Topamax has been linked to various birth defects risks, including oral clefts, limb defects, heart defects and other congenital defects, spina bifida and PPHN. If your baby was born with birth defects as a result of Topamax exposure, contact attorney Greg Jones today for a free consultation. I am experienced at fighting Topamax lawsuits and may be able to help you recover money for your baby’s injuries.