Epilepsy Foundation Seeks Rules on Generics

Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Ginny Miller blames her son’s string of epileptic seizures on a generic medicine that she says she expected to work as well as the original brand-name treatment.

Sam, 17, went seven weeks without an episode while taking Zonegran, made by Tokyo-based Eisai Co. After pharmacists switched him to generic copies made by four different companies, he suffered multiple seizures daily and was hospitalized three times before doctors identified differences between the medications as the cause, said Miller, of Dayville, Connecticut. She said her son’s doctor was never notified about the switches and she didn’t always know what company supplied the pills....