On today's Please Explain, Leonard is speaking to Joe Graedon, author of the book and website The People's Pharmacy, about generic drugs. I became interested in the topic when I was recently prescribed a generic antibiotic--and was floored by how much cheaper it was than the name brand I normally requested. Curious to see just how the costs between generics and brand-name drugs broke down, I used data from IMS Health and Drug Topics to compare the prices of the top ten name brand and generic drugs. The full list is in the chart below.

The results aren't too surprising--generics are all significantly cheaper--but now my curiosity has been piqued yet again: just what do these drugs do? Let us know in the comments if you've ever taken one - and share with us your stories of pharmacy shuffles!