USP Drugs: Text Format

To add these medical pharmaceutical spellings to your spell checker:

First, a word about the spelling of generic, non-prescription, prescription, and OTC (over-the-counter) pharmaceuticals. As a general rule, the chemical name of a drug, usually called the "generic name," is not capitalized, while the proper or trade name is. There are some exceptions however, such as when drug companies take a generic drug name and preface it with certain letters. A good example of this spelling protocol is "Apo-Furosemide," which is the brand, trade, or proper name of the generic drug "furosemide" made by Apotex Inc. Because the generic name becomes part of a proper name, it should be capitalized. Secondly, when adding prescription and nonprescription drug and product names to your speller program, be careful what you add. Nowadays many companies spell the actual drug or product just a little bit different than the actual generic name. If you add a slightly altered drug word, such as "Oxybutyn" (the brand, trade, or proper name) for "oxybutynin" (the generic name), your speller will accept the proper name when you may have actually intended to type the generic version. You will also come across similar decisions when adding products whose proper names may have manufactured words such as "Sunfilter" in "Bain de Soleil All Day Sunfilter."

With your word-processing program or a text editor open, use your mouse to select all the words below in one group. Then, while the words are still selected, copy the words by keying <CTRL>+<C>. This copies the selected text to your computer's "clipboard." Go to a new page in your word-processing program or text editor and key <CTRL><V>. This "pastes" the words onto the page from your computer's "clipboard." Now run your spell-checking feature as you normally would and just add any words your spell checker program does not recognize, keeping in mind the cautions outlined above. The drug and product words and word-groups listed below are separated by a comma.

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Wake-Up, warfarin, Warfilone, Wart-Off Topical Solution, Waterbabies Little Licks, Waterbabies Sunblock, Webber Vitamin E, Wehgen, Wehless, Wehless-105 Timecelles, Welchol, Wellbutrin, Wellbutrin SR, Wellcovorin, Wellferon, West-Decon, Westcort, Westhroid, Westrim, Westrim L.A., Whole-cell DTP, Wigraine, Winpred, WinRho SD, Winstrol, Wintrocin, Wolfina, Wycillin, Wygesic, Wymox, Wytensin,

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