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Resources from the National Library of Medicine: Drugs and Chemicals

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) provides a wealth of resources available to the public. They include scholarly and consumer health materials.

MedlinePlus Drugs, Herbs, and Supplements

MedlinePlus Drugs, Herbs and Supplements  is the first place to check for plain language drug information. It provides drug information in English or Spanish that is useful to patients, providers, and caregivers. Search or browse over 1,500 prescription, generic, and over the counter medications. Each drug record includes side effects, dosage, precautions, storage, and more. 

DailyMed

DailyMed  provides package insert information for FDA approved drugs, in a display designed to be easy to read. Package inserts are generally created by the drug manufacturer for the purpose of providing physicians with information relevant to writing prescriptions, but consumers use package inserts to learn about the drugs. The DailyMed database provides the most recent labeling submitted to the Food and Drug Administration  (FDA) by companies and currently in use.

PubChem

PubChem  is a chemical information reference resource. Search a chemical name or structure to find everything known about it, from what it’s been called, what it looks like, what it does to your body, to patent information, related journal literature, experimental information, and more. PubChem is generally used by chemistry and pharmacy students and researchers.

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