On Fri, 28 Feb 2003 05:49 pm, Elizabeth Barham wrote: > It seems possible, however, to pull information in using the same > primary key that the NDC does, such as interactions or even molecule > structure.
If you limit yourself to the NDC's primary keys, you won't be able to include drugs not registered in the US. Yet such drugs are widely used, even in the US, where they are imported by doctors and patients on special FDA excemptions on application (like bovine Insuline, and not so long ago still Betahistine which is now at least available genericaly from compound pharmacists, and at some stage (or even still?) Sulfadiazine just to mention a few) It furthermore excludes virtually all generic medication which *is* available in the US from compund pharmacists, but has no current brand/manufacturer registered for it's production To sum it up: the NDC database is an administrative and not a clinical database, and as such it has very limited use for clinicians. SInce he data is apparently not copyrighted in a restrictive way, it can be a useful ressource for a real drug database, but not a substite (IMHO). For that very reason I would strongly advise you agaist using NDC primary keys as your own primary keys Horst
