Medicines are chemicals that are manipulated to bring therapeutic effects to people. Every day it is possible to observe its importance in society, either helping in the treatment of some pathology or favoring a better quality of life. The present study aimed to evaluate the effects caused by the disposal of medicines in the environment. In order to carry out the present study, a bibliographic survey was carried out in the Medline, VHL and Pubmed databases, from 2014 to 2020, in the English and Portuguese languages that fit the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 10 articles were selected. In all the studies evaluated, the authors unanimously concluded that the majority of the population is unaware of the means of correctly disposing of medicines and the harmful impacts they cause on the environment. Therefore, this review demonstrated that despite having several studies on this issue, there is still a great lack of information regarding the population.

Eventually, there are reports of inadequacies in relation to the quality of medicines, and there are still doubts regarding the quality and effectiveness of similar and generic medicines compared to reference medicines. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate in the literature, studies that deal with the quality of similar, generic and reference drugs sold in Brazil. To carry out the present study, a bibliographic survey was carried out in the Medline, Lilacs, Scielo and VHL databases, of articles published in the period from 2015 to 2020, in English and Portuguese that fit the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 10 were selected articles. In all studies, the authors unanimously concluded that most generic and similar drugs sold in Brazil have the same quality profile and can be safely inserted by patients. Therefore, this review demonstrates that generic drugs have the same therapeutic quality and efficacy as reference drugs. However, some authors have shown that similar drugs, despite undergoing quality tests to be released on the market, do not meet the criteria of quality and efficacy when compared to generic or reference drugs.