First, thanks to the people who have made suggestions to help me solve my
problem of resolving misspelled drug names. I'm still working on it and will
post again to the list when I've found the best solution.
In the mean time, off list I received a request to post my index file of drug
names by a lister who is interested in it and thinks others might be as well.
I created my index file from the FDA's National Drug Code Directory. The FDA's
files, which are fixed-format ASCII, are publicly available without charge at
http://www.fda.gov/cder/ndc/index.htm. There are several files with different
kinds of information, all linked by an FDA drug code, and there is good
documentation accompanying the files. The whole kit and kaboodle can be
downloaded as a single self-extracting zip file. Once you've decided what
information you want to keep and what you don't need, creating a stata file is
just a few -infix- and -merge- commands away!
Clyde Schechter
Dept. of Family Medicine & Community Health
Albert Einstein College of Medicine
Bronx, NY, USA
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