Gaining FDA approval is rightly expensive, time consuming, and necessary to prove effectiveness and safety of brand new medications. However, it is a financial barrier for medications that have never been introduced into the U.S but have been available and found effective worldwide for so many years they are now cheap generics. Two such medications are domperidone and oral ketotifen. Domperidone is the current best medical treatment for gastroparesis (stomach paralysis), and oral ketotifen is one of two mast cell stabilizing medicines for mastocytosis and similar disorders.(The other med is Gastrocrom, which is expensive - $5,000 to $10,000 per year - and may cause severe side effects. The active ingredient in Gastrocrom is generic and available as a cheap pill, but not in the U.S.



