Recently the big pharmacy benefit manager used by my health insurance swapped the manufacturer of my generic prescription. Short story: it upset the apple cart of my health. For those that like a long, detailed David and Goliath stories of the average person trying to slay a corporate giant, additional information can be provided. Or you can wait for the movie.

Quick lesson from a non-scientific perspective: generics are not all the same. You may have experienced this in your life; maybe you will in the future. The learning came years ago through a relative using generics from different grocery stores: one grocery store generic worked; the other did not (at all). We learned from a writer friend in the health industry that the numbers on the back of the box allow for standard deviation. Your generic or new generic may not have the same effect as the previous generic. The contents read the same but may not be the same.

And, I hear, that the carrier compounds can also affect efficacy and absorption. Still researching.

The drug information provided for each generic reads the same – only the manufacturer information is swapped out. And some use larger font than others. But content is equivalent.

What’s generic here?

What’s equivalent is the information, not the drug itself.

Generic Culture

Curation of information is useful for organization and categorization so users can access what they need more easily. It’s common in business Intranets and library sites.

Medical information – even the news stories on national news – is curated. Learned that years ago from a media agency. While you may have ten thousand Internet hits on your search for “diabetes,” most is the exact same content tweaked or not tweaked.

Information, like retail products, is increasingly generic, not specific. How is it that we have access to more people and information than ever, yet our search results are increasingly generic?

The volume of information is reducing the variety of information. How did this happen?

Capricorn and Aquarius

Traditionally the signs of Capricorn and Aquarius were both ruled by Saturn, Uranus having not yet been discovered. Capricorn is the sign of authority, rules, and structure. Aquarius is related to genius in that it questions authority, rules, and structure. Both are stubborn.

The outer planets of Uranus (7 years in a sign), Neptune (15 years in a sign) and Pluto (20 years in a sign) have all transited Capricorn since the 1990s, the beginnings of our Digital Age. Uranus and Neptune have also passed through Aquarius and now it’s time for Pluto to do the same.

In these last couple decades, we’ve had sudden changes (Uranus) and glamorization (Neptune) of technology. Now comes the Pluto in Aquarius transformation of technology.

If you haven’t been affected yet, many of our societal threats are coming through the digital environment. The Capricorn government protects the citizen from the Aquarian digital threats. Americans love freedom and supposedly dislike government but left alone in the digital battleground, only the master hackers would survive. As with traditional warfare, the individual needs the protection of those creating the warfare – if they can figure out which side is the protector.

Pluto in Aquarius

In a couple months, Pluto will move into Aquarius for the long haul, until 2043. After Aquarius comes Pisces so by that time we may (hopefully) bring Pisces compassion and empathy to our digital life.

When Pluto entered Capricorn in 2007, the corresponding world events including a collapse of the housing market.

Collapse is bad, right?

Had the housing market not been manipulated and overleveraged, Pluto would still have transformed, but it wouldn’t have been traumatic or destructive. Transformation is dependent upon the underlying foundation. The foundation was cracked and could not survive the impact.

Is the digital foundation cracked?

We’ll soon know. Or do we know already?

Can we get past the generic information to find out?