[Corpora-List] medication pronunciations

[Angus Grieve-Smith]

On Sun, 30 Mar 2008, Dr DJ Hatch wrote:

> But are these labels provided by the marketing people or the chemists? 
> You seen to suggest the former, Angus.

 	Both, actually, and that's part of the problem.  Every drug has a 
generic name, which generally seem to be made up by chemists, and at least 
one brand name, which seem to be made up by marketing people.  Having 
multiple names for every drug, each name with its own delicate balance of 
similarity to and distinction from the other names, uses up names 
unnecessarily (from the consumer's point of view).  There is a limit to 
the number of drug names that a human being can reasonably be expected to 
hold in memory and distinguish phonologically, and it's a waste to use 
that up on brand distinctions.

 	For example, just last week I was looking for pseudoephedrine 
hydrochloride (brand name Sudafed) in a local pharmacy.  It's usually 
behind the pharmacy counter, so I asked a pharmacist.  She started walking 
towards the cold medicine aisle, which made me realize that she was going 
to give me phenylephrine hydrochloride (brand name Sudafed PE), so I had 
to tell her, "No, I'm looking for pseudoephedrine."  She directed me to 
the front counter, which is where they keep pseudoephedrine in this 
pharmacy.

 	This is a frequent occurrence for me, and it's compounded by the 
fact that I'm used to calling the stuff "Sudafed," and don't have practice 
calling it "pseudoephedrine."  I came up with a "reading pronunciation" of 
the generic name, "sud-EF-a-drin," which is incorrect: the pharmacists 
call it "su-do-ef-ED-rin."  I've learned to pronounce it the correct way, 
but when I'm under stress (like when I'm in a pharmacy trying to get my 
medicine before the pharmacist gets impatient and walks away), my old 
invented pronunciation comes out.

 	I'm not trying to put blame on anyone in particular, I'm just 
pointing out that this is an area where literacy - even a grad school 
education - isn't enough to avoid confusion.  It's a problem largely 
created by the idiosyncracies of the intellectual property system that was 
set up to generate profits for drug companies and thus encourage them to 
produce new drugs.  You can attack it from the literacy angle, but there 
are other angles to it that might be more effective.

 					-Angus B. Grieve-Smith
 					grvsmth at panix.com

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