How Safe Are Your Generic Prescription Drugs? Now This Free Tool Will Help You Find Out

Generic versions of prescription medications can be a great way to save up to 80% to 85% off brand-name formulas.

And while the U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires that generics have the same active ingredients and provide the same benefits as their more costly counterparts, they may not be as safe as you might assume.

The majority of generic medications in the U.S. are manufactured in foreign countries, such as India or China, where FDA oversight is inconsistent.

The FDA has also made it difficult for the American public to identify the specific plants where pills are made or to see the results of safety inspections. The agency has even blacked out information on overseas facilities with safety violations, as nonprofit newsroom ProPublica has reported.

Now ProPublica has launched a tool — Rx Inspector — to help Americans find out where their generics are made.

Rx Inspector allows users to search by the name of a medication or a manufacturer to see exactly which facilities are involved in the production process.

Here’s how to check your medication:

• Locate the manufacturer name on your prescription bottle label or the paperwork stapled to your pharmacy bag.
• Enter that name into the Rx Inspector search bar.
• Review the facility’s inspection history for warning signs.

To create this resource, ProPublica researchers connected the dots between vast sets of usually disconnected FDA data, linking specific drug products to the manufacturing facilities listed in government records.

Here’s what ProPublica’s tool can show you:

• Import alert: This rare inspection outcome indicates drugs from this facility were banned from coming into the U.S.
• Warning letter: This means that the FDA issued warnings of significant violations of federal requirements.
• Unacceptable state of compliance: Inspectors found serious issues at the facility and recommended official compliance action.
• Some issues found, but no further FDA action: The FDA found issues, but the facility can voluntarily correct them.
• Inspector documented issues: An inspector filed deficiencies, but the data may not yet be connected to a final FDA inspection designation.
• Acceptable state: This is the best possible outcome. It means the FDA took no compliance action and ProPublica found no issues documented by inspectors.

If you take generic medications, it’s wise to look them up using this tool. If there’s a recall, you may not be informed about it, and it can lead to further health complications in some cases.

Once you have more information about where a drug is made, you can talk to your pharmacist. If a specific manufacturer has a troubling inspection history, your pharmacist may be able to source the same generic from a different facility with a cleaner record.

However, never stop taking your prescribed medication without first consulting your doctor, even if you find a red flag.

This level of transparency ensures that those paying for these medications have the same information as the regulators tasked with watching over them, but medical decisions should always be made with a professional.

To search for your generic medications, you can use the ProPublica Rx Inspector here.