<<Disclaimer: Verify this information before applying it to your situation.>> Hi List, I think what would be most important for the List as a whole to know is whether we can trust generic drug manufacturers to not include gluten in their formulations of drugs that are GF in the brand-name version. And how we can find out if they do or don't. I hope a professional or someone who has info about manufacturing practices will reply to this. We all know of the many of hidden forms in which gluten crops up. Do the generic manufacturers know? Do they care? I think it's especially important for the List to know because so many HMOs and PPOs are switching to generic drugs to cut drug costs. For years I read that generics are"exactly the same as brand name drugs," so don't waste your money buying expensive brand name meds. Then I read in a magazine I trust (I THINK it was Consumer Reports) that generic formulations of a drug could differ widely from the brand name version. My immediate personal reason for asking this general question is that I've repeatedly tried to uncover the gluten status of Duramed 1mg. Estradiol tablets. Their Customer (dis?)Service Rep informed me that "gluten is not listed as an ingredient;" she DIDN'T say, "it's gluten-free." I don't recall seeing gluten listed as an ingredient on patient info inserts, even those of meds that the Celiac ListServ says contain gluten. Is "gluten is not listed as an ingredient," an adequate guarantee of a product's being gluten-free? I'm certain Estradiol itself is GF. My previous brand-name estrogen caused me no problems -- and their Customer Service Rep said it was definitely gluten-free. Since my HMO switched to the generic, I've gradually begun to have symptoms. At first they were so slight, I didn't believe they were actually Celiac. I've been on the new estrogen for about two months and today realized that I'm having full-blown across-the-board Celiac symptoms. I usually have full-blown flat-out, run for the john (and try to remember that your first symptom is loss of depth perception, so that you don't run head-long into the door jamb again this time!) symptoms. These new symptoms came on slowly and very subtly. Today I finally noticed I've lost my sense of smell, again (usually one of the last symptoms and I don't always get it). So I guess that EITHER being (mostly) GF for 17 months has changed my symptom onset pattern (a few months back it hadn't), OR there's miniscule gluten in whatever it is I'm getting, so it took a long while to build up. There was an earlier post re:red dyes containing gluten. These pills are pink, for what it's worth. I also started taking Ranitidine again when my Reflux returned. I thought I'd recovered from Reflux, then I started the new estrogen pills and a little later the Reflux returned. Ranitidine is another generic, made by Par, and it's orange. It seemed to never give me Celiac symptoms during the first 17 GF months. And I think I was able to contact Par and they said it's definitely GF. (I'm not certain, though; memory loss and confusion is another one of my Celiac symptoms.) I've rewritten this a jillion times. If it's confusing and disjointed, please forgive me. As I said, I'm really having flat-out symptoms. Whew! Raynelle/Oregon