Re:Tony & a.... Re: generic azithromycin?

[Guest guest]

asked:

Did Nicolson perform (or have knowledge of) any testing of the genericmino? After all, it's easy to test in vitro.

,

It's been a long time, and I don't remember. I went back in my files and found that TexLyme Mom posted this:

Wyeth-Ayerst now makes brand name Minocin in both the US and Canada. Wyeth sold off its division which RA patients used to depend on for obtaining generic minocycline, so now the only way to be sure that you are getting a product equivalent to brand name Minocin is simply to pay first price and insist on brand name Minocin.There are too many problems with generic minocycline. The filler ingredients are shipped in from "third world" countries, and there is too much variation between one batch of generic minocycline and the next. Many different companies supply generic minocycline products and it's a crap shoot, not knowing from one Rx refill to the next what manufacturer your druggest is going to be dealing with. You might get a good batch one time and not the next.

I just got a prescription of Zithromax from Greenstone which is Pfizer's own generic. It actually LOOKS BETTER than Teva's version. I'll let you know if it works better.

If you test the antibiotic in vitro I don't know if that would tell you how it works in vivo. Besides I don't even know how you would get a mycoplasma or borrelia infection in a petri dish. How about babesia? You are gonna have to have an expensive microscope to see these critters, dead or alive inside cells. Then you are going to have to biopsy your bone marrow or brain, right? But I digress.

a Carnes

[Guest guest]

> If you test the antibiotic in vitro I don't know if that would tell

you how

> it works in vivo. Besides I don't even know how you would get a

mycoplasma

> or borrelia infection in a petri dish. How about babesia? You are

gonna have

> to have an expensive microscope to see these critters, dead or alive

inside

> cells. Then you are going to have to biopsy your bone marrow or brain,

> right? But I digress.

I agree 100.00% with the notion that in our illness a petri dish can be

extremely limited in telling you what's going on in your body. But I'm

really just asking what's going on in the pill; is it a genuine pill. I

would tend to accept without proof that if the active ingredient is

present, it will almost certainly work the same as a brand name

product. As mentioned upthread, it's possible the binders in

the pill could make some difference, but I tend to doubt that's going

to be very intense. Personally I wouldn't have full confidence in

reports of generic vs brand methylphenidate being significantly

different, without data from blinded experiments (ie can the samples be

be correctly distinguished by a blinded user). Or maybe if I

experienced it myself, I would beleive it without data (everyone

believes themself!).

As for the test organisms, for testing generics, I would just use E

coli and the like. No microscope is necessary; you can just dilute the

generic drug to find the MIC, and see if it is the same as the MIC you

find with the brand drug. The MIC is the lowest concentration that

prevents heavy bacterial growth (visible as a thick cloudiness to the

naked eye) in a test tube full of rich medium, over a certain period.

(For fast-growing organisms like E coli, that period is about 20

hours.) The MIC does not actually prevent growth; in fact it may only

slow growth by about twofold! That's not very much. But since the cells

increase in number exponentially, a twofold difference in growth rate

has titanic effects on the final number of cells created in 20 hours

(about a billion-fold, assuming none of the cells run out of food,

which in reality they eventually do).

The only problem I forsee is that the generic might be a completely

different drug. If my generic " zith " actually contains pencillin, then

it will still inhibit a test organism like Bacillus subtilis just like

zith, so I will conclude my zith is totally cool (if the masquerading

penicillin has the same inhbitory potency as my Pfizer zith). However,

this is still easy to get around with shoestring technology. It's easy

to create a mutant B subtilis that is resistant to zith. For most abx,

resistant mutants have a frequency roughly around 1 / 10^8, so all I

need is to plate 10^10 ordinary B subtilis and I will have my zith-

resistant mutant. If the generic zith is really penicillin, it will

inhibit the mutant, and I will know it's not really zith. (On the other

hand, what if the generic zith is really not penicillin but

erythromycin, and my zith-resistant mutant is cross-resistant to the

similar erythromycin molecule? Hmmm.)

Of course, if you do that you will risk exposure to the DNA for zith

resistance, which can be taken up by other bacteria and integrated into

their own genomes. So that may carry some risk. Personally I wouldn't

think too much of it, having already worked with abx resistant lab

organisms daily for many months.

Of course if you were to do this you should first read a bacteriology

lab manual to learn the practices for dealing with Bio-safety Level 1

organisms like E coli. They are not pathogens but they can infect a

wound, etc. In brief you need to not ingest them (duh), and you need to

kill them thoroughly before disposing of them.

[Guest guest]

A further caveat on safety is that one should remember that the

knowledge base of medical bacteriology concerns only the proven

bacterial diseases. So, there's no perfect assurance that any organism

cannot possibly cause some kind of undetectable chronic infection with

low-grade results on the host. The normal E coli lab strain (K12) lacks

full-length LPS and is supposed to be unable to infect or colonize the

mammalian body or gut, but that's based on short-term experiments by

people who equate " infection " with " fever, pus, swelling, prostration,

and vomiting. "

> Of course, if you do that you will risk exposure to the DNA for zith

> resistance, which can be taken up by other bacteria and integrated

into

> their own genomes. So that may carry some risk. Personally I wouldn't

> think too much of it, having already worked with abx resistant lab

> organisms daily for many months.

>

> Of course if you were to do this you should first read a bacteriology

> lab manual to learn the practices for dealing with Bio-safety Level 1

> organisms like E coli. They are not pathogens but they can infect a

> wound, etc. In brief you need to not ingest them (duh), and you need

to

> kill them thoroughly before disposing of them.

>

[Guest guest]

wrote:

Of course if you were to do this you should first read a bacteriology lab manual to learn the practices for dealing with Bio-safety Level 1 organisms like E coli. They are not pathogens but they can infect a wound, etc. In brief you need to not ingest them (duh), and you need to kill them thoroughly before disposing of them.

PJ replies:

You guys are so far beyond me, as is Nelly Pointis and Barb Peck. I just try to summarize. If you go back and read the lawsuit info from Pfizer, I am not sure that the difference is meaningless. Trouble is, I am no chemist or biologist, so have no clue.

I can only add that the coating on Teva's is awful - thin, so thin you can see the white insides on every single pill - little holes where the coating does not coat. So what effect does the di-

or the mono- have to do with anything? Pfizer said the LABEL was inaccurate, but it seems that the significance of that is more than a simple inaccurate label.

I have my experience and one other - a woman a greatly respect. We shall see.

I've been on Valtrex one day and Zithromax from Greenstone 4 days. So far the headache doesn't set in until about noon. Today it is 2:40 and still no major head pressure. I did walk around the block today.

I will keep you posted.

a

[Guest guest]

PAula

Nothing your going thru is a surprise. Your relief the first time

round hasn't been touched the second time around by the same

medications. This is called resistance buuilding. All your

pseudonomas bacteria are now significantly resistant to most what

your throwing at them..Patterns r common throughout these ordeals.

How often people got huge relief on there first wave of therapy only

to rebound and not get a positive response the second time around.

tony

> Of course if you were to do this you should first read a

bacteriology

> lab manual to learn the practices for dealing with Bio-safety Level

1

> organisms like E coli. They are not pathogens but they can infect a

> wound, etc. In brief you need to not ingest them (duh), and you

need to

> kill them thoroughly before disposing of them.

>

>

> PJ replies:

> You guys are so far beyond me, as is Nelly Pointis and Barb Peck. I

just try

> to summarize. If you go back and read the lawsuit info from Pfizer,

I am not

> sure that the difference is meaningless. Trouble is, I am no

chemist or

> biologist, so have no clue.

>

> I can only add that the coating on Teva's is awful - thin, so thin

you can

> see the white insides on every single pill - little holes where the

coating

> does not coat. So what effect does the di-

> or the mono- have to do with anything? Pfizer said the LABEL was

inaccurate,

> but it seems that the significance of that is more than a simple

inaccurate

> label.

>

> I have my experience and one other - a woman a greatly respect. We

shall

> see.

>

> I've been on Valtrex one day and Zithromax from Greenstone 4 days.

So far

> the headache doesn't set in until about noon. Today it is 2:40 and

still no

> major head pressure. I did walk around the block today.

>

> I will keep you posted.

>

> a

>

[Guest guest]

Tony wrote:

PAulaNothing your going thru is a surprise. Your relief the first time round hasn't been touched the second time around by the same medications. This is called resistance buuilding. All your pseudonomas bacteria are now significantly resistant to most what your throwing at them..Patterns r common throughout these ordeals. How often people got huge relief on there first wave of therapy only to rebound and not get a positive response the second time around.tony

Tony,

I realize that one would EXPECT the infections to develop resistance. However, I don't think that fits my history. My best guess is that I have babesia, and Zithromax has always kept it under control but not cured it.

A year ago I developed the strange head pressure symptoms following either a new infection or a tear in the back of my sinuses which allowed the bacteria to enter the brain. Using a CPAP machine may have made this more likely.

But at that same time is about when I started trying the generic azithromycin from Teva. One has to ask:

Do I have the same infection but the Zithromax isn't any good?

Has the infection mutated?

Is it a new infection?

Is, as Matt suggests, the infection is gone but the intracranial pressure is permanent damage?

RIGHT NOW, I am trying Greenstone's Zithromax until we can decide what further tests to run along the lines of Matt's suggestions.

a

[Guest guest]

a, what do you think "resistance" is if it's not "mutation"? penny a Carnes <pj7@...> wrote: Tony wrote: PAulaNothing your going thru is a surprise. Your relief the first time round hasn't been touched the second time around by

the same medications. This is called resistance buuilding. All your pseudonomas bacteria are now significantly resistant to most what your throwing at them..Patterns r common throughout these ordeals. How often people got huge relief on there first wave of therapy only to rebound and not get a positive response the second time around.tony Tony, I realize that one would EXPECT the infections to develop resistance. However, I don't think that fits my history. My best guess is that I have babesia, and Zithromax has always kept it under control but not cured it. A year ago I developed the strange head pressure symptoms following either a new infection or a tear in the back of my sinuses which allowed the bacteria to enter the brain. Using a CPAP machine may have made this more likely. But at that same time is about when I started trying the generic azithromycin from Teva. One has to ask: Do I have the same infection but the Zithromax isn't any good? Has the infection mutated? Is it a new infection? Is, as Matt suggests, the infection is gone but the intracranial pressure is permanent damage? RIGHT NOW, I am trying Greenstone's Zithromax until we can decide what further tests to run along the lines of Matt's suggestions. a