RickInOz

I was in Boots today buying some ibuprofen. Just in case you were wondering I didn’t run the 7 and have taken a few days off. The shin splints are a lot better but still giving me a bit of gip. Anyway I digress. Obtaining simple analgesics isn’t as simple as it appears. The selection is somewhat surprising. The choice today was: Nurofen Ultra Strength at almost £4 a pack, Nurofen regular at £3 a pack, Boots own brand at £1 a pack and some unbranded tablets for 40p. Now Joe Public could be forgiven for believing that the axiom “You get what you pay for” operates in this case. Complete bollocks! The actual amount of active drug (i.e: ibuprofen) provided by each of these products is exactly the same. Even a rational intelligent person might assume that the Ultra Strength Nurofen is better then the regular strength and will provide superior analgesia. However the dose is one 400mg tablet versus the two 200mg tablet dose of the regular strength. So the overall amount of drug taken is, yes you guessed it, precisely the same. How this justifies a £1 premium is beyond me. In fact, why pay 10 times as much to get take the same quantity of the same drug?

This is nothing more than a cruel scam by the pharmaceutical industry preying on the naivety and ignorance of the general public. Unsurprisingly I bought the 40p generic and am quite satisfied.