Are some pills identical?

[treehuggertodd]

Is there any law that states that the same formula for a nonprescription diet pill can't be used for a number of differnet products? For example, if you have a diet pill made up of hoodia, caffeine, and green tea (that's just a random combination I made up), is it possible for it to be used in thirty different pills under different names, even in the same concentrations, or do they all have to be different somehow?

[ChristySmiles]

I think that there are a lot of pills out there that have the same or similar ingredients but I don't know if they're exactly the same. The only way that I know that some of them are the same is through licensing deals with the manufacturers of the pills but I think that they still have to go by the same pill name so they will be recognized as the same thing. You can also probably find two pills with the same ingredients but that have different quantities. Otherwise, I just imagine that you'd be seeing lawsuits all over the place about various different formulas. It's hard to say since there's not a huge amount of regulation with the nonprescription industry. As long as you don't put banned ingredients in, then you can get away with a lot.

[KraftyJo]

I'm under a similar impression. I do think that there are likely a lot of low quality pills out there with the same formulas with different labels slapped onto them, though

[CuJo1992]

sometimes one manufacturer licenses out so that lots of companies can just slap their label on the same pill

[bonniekins]

sometimes one manufacturer licenses out so that lots of companies can just slap their label on the same pill

That is such a sketchy practice. It shows that you really do need to look into what you buy before you take it.