MedShadow, founded in 2013, is a nonprofit media company that focuses on the safest ways to take over-the-counter and prescription medications. Medications have many benefits, but knowing how to balance these against their potential side effects is essential. Side effects can sometimes be difficult to recognize, so MedShadow works to illuminate and explain medication reactions that may be otherwise minimized or obscured. MedShadow does not accept or receive any financial support or funding from the pharmaceutical or supplement industries to ensure unbiased reporting.
This year, MedShadow launched a series called Investigating Generics, with articles, webinars, and social media content that identified and explored generic drug quality, safety, and supply chain issues. By interviewing patients, doctors, pharmacists, and other healthcare experts; exploring research studies; commissioning a nationwide survey; and tracking recalls, this series informs and equips consumers as they make medication choices for themselves and their loved ones. It also advocates for better policies and practices that govern generic drug manufacturing at the state and federal level. From opioids to ADHD meds, patients have shared their frustration and poor experiences when taking generics and switching between manufacturers, including issues with efficacy, quality, dissolution rate, and side effects. The bipartisan US Senate Committee on Aging has also held several hearings on this topic in 2025, featuring testimony from experts cited in MedShadow's articles and free webinar series. By drawing attention to these issues, MedShadow aims to ensure everyone can access safe, reliable and affordable generic drugs.
Early in 2025, following Founder Suzanne Robotti’s recommendation, the MedShadow team began researching generic drug supply chain issues. After revealing significant concerns, the team’s research and interviews identified the need for accurate, in-depth reporting to share patient stories, healthcare providers’ and researchers’ perspectives, and policy experts’ advice. A three-part webinar series and new social media content focused on generics issues, solutions and recalls. The team researched and co-produced a nationwide survey with Kantar and developed a plan for a series of eight “Investigating Generics” articles on MedShadow.org. This collection of content was promoted across the website, social channels, and weekly newsletter and through partners and speakers.
The first article in the series, “They Say Their ADHD Meds Aren’t Working. They’re Not Imagining It,” by Emma Yasinski was published on May 30, 2025. The first webinar, “How Poor Quality Generics Cause Harm” launched the following month on June 25. The nationwide survey ran in June and was published in July, announcing that “Two-Thirds of Americans Would Pay More for Safer Drugs.”
Our petite team regularly juggles many core projects and contributed focus and energy to this effort because we knew how important it is. We met challenges along the way with interest and resilience, such as launching a webinar series and survey and shifting our content focus from breaking news to investigative work on key topics, like Investigating Generics. Getting the right strategies and partners in place to deploy our resources in the most impactful way was key to our success.
Along the way, some of the challenges we overcame included: navigating timely opportunities, wrangling expert speakers and their complicated schedules, and finding patients who wanted to share their stories. Furthermore, In a challenging political climate with changes to healthcare oversight and decisionmaking at the federal level, MedShadow knew this work would be essential to the millions of Americans who take medication every day. We all deserve access to safe, effective, and affordable generic drugs. By maintaining our North Star: helping consumers make more informed decisions for themselves and their families, we persevered and generated a meaningful collection of high-quality journalism and actionable insights.
The full list of website content appears below.
The outpouring of support and interest from the larger community of patients, advocates, healthcare providers and experts confirmed our efforts on Investigating Generics were critical. At a time when information was limited with federal government reductions in staff and public information, our work became all the more crucial.
A pivotal moment was when we had our first TikTok video go viral with hundreds of thousands of views and hundreds of comments. Emma Yasinski, Senior Investigative Reporter at MedShadow, closely follows recall announcements for widely used generic drugs and shares her findings and article summaries on TikTok. You can view her popular videos, pinned here: https://www.tiktok.com/@medshadow_foundation.
Investigating Generic articles on the website are also among MedShadow's most popular pieces of content. With 14% of all views centered on these articles (109K views), this series outperformed most other content on the site, other than the homepage.
MedShadow reached over 100,000 people with its webinar promotions, and had close to 500 registrants and 260 newsletter subscribers. The webinars offered value through expert speakers from globally influential organizations, such as Yale School of Medicine, The Brookings Institution, FDA (former inspector), Ohio State University, The People’s Pharmacy, Valisure, and the award-winning authors of Bottle of Lies and China RX. Two of these speakers also presented to the Senate Committee on Aging within weeks of our events with them, further driving national conversations about issues and solutions. People are encouraged to call their elected officials to share their stories and elevate the visibility of these issues.
