EXPIRATION DATE ...DRUGS

[DAKA]

 

 

---

Does the expiration date on a bottle of a medication mean anything? 

If a bottle of Tylenol, for example, says something like "Do not use after June 1998," and it is August 2002, should you take the Tylenol? Should you discard it? Can you get hurt if you take it?
 
Will it simply have lost its potency and do you no good?
 
In other words, are drug manufacturers being honest with us when they put an expiration date on their medications, or is the practice of dating just another drug industry scam, to get us to buy new medications when the old ones that purportedly have "expired" are still perfectly good?
 
These are the pressing questions I investigated after my mother-in-law recently said to me, "It doesn't mean anything," when I pointed out that the Tylenol she was about to take had "expired" 4 years and a few months ago. I was a bit mocking in my pronouncement -- feeling superior that I had noticed the chemical corpse in her cabinet -- but she was equally adamant in her reply, and is generally very sage about medical issues.
 
So I gave her a glass of water with the purportedly "dead" drug, of which she took 2 capsules for a pain in the upper back. About a half hour later she reported the pain seemed to have eased up a bit.
 
I said, "You could be having a placebo effect," not wanting to simply concede she was right about the drug, and also not actually knowing what I was talking about.
I was just happy to hear that her pain had eased, even before we had our evening cocktails and hot tub dip (we were in "Leisure World," near Laguna Beach, California, where the hot tub is bigger than most Manhattan apartments, and "Heaven," as generally portrayed, would be raucous by comparison).
 
Upon my return to NYC and high-speed connection, I immediately scoured the medical data bases and general literature for the answer to my question about drug expiration labeling.
 
And voila, no sooner than I could say "Screwed again by the pharmaceutical industry," I had my answer. 

Here are the simple facts:
First, the expiration date, required by law in the United States, beginning in 1979, specifies only the date the manufacturer guarantees the full potency and safety of the drug -- it does not mean how long the drug is actually "good" or safe to use.
 
Second, medical authorities uniformly say it is safe to take drugs past their expiration date –no matter how "expired" the drugs purportedly are. Except for possibly the rarest of exceptions, you won't get hurt and you certainly won't get killed.
 
Studies show that expired drugs may lose some of their potency over time, from as little as 5% or less to 50% or more (though usually much less than the latter). Even 10 years after the "expiration date," most drugs have a good deal of their original potency.

One of the largest studies ever conducted that supports the above points about "expired drug" labeling was done by the US military 15 years ago, according to a feature story in the Wall Street Journal (March 29, 2000), reported by Laurie P. Cohen.
 
The military was sitting on a $1 billion stockpile of drugs and facing the daunting process of destroying and replacing its supply every 2 to 3 years, so it began a testing program to see if it could extend the life of its inventory.
 
The testing, conducted by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), ultimately covered more than 100 drugs, prescription and over-the-counter.
 
The results showed, about 90% of them were safe and effective as long as 15 years past their expiration date.
 
In light of these results, a former director of the testing program, Francis Flaherty, said he concluded that expiration dates put on by manufacturers typically have no bearing on whether a drug is usable for longer.
 
Mr. Flaherty noted that a drug maker is required to prove only that a drug is still good on whatever expiration date the company chooses to set. The expiration date doesn't mean, or even suggest, that the drug will stop being effective after that, nor that it will become harmful.

"Manufacturers put expiration dates on for marketing, rather than scientific, reasons, " said Mr. Flaherty, a pharmacist at the FDA until his retirement in 1999.
 
"It's not profitable for them to have products on a shelf for 10 years. They want turnover."
 
The FDA cautioned there isn't enough evidence from the program, which is weighted toward drugs used during combat, to conclude most drugs in consumers' medicine cabinets are potent beyond the expiration date.
 
Joel Davis, however, a former FDA expiration-date compliance chief, said that with a handful of exceptions -- notably nitroglycerin, insulin, and some antibiotics -- most drugs are probably as durable as those the agency has tested for the military.

"Most drugs degrade very slowly," he said. "In all likelihood, you can take a product you have at home and keep it for many years." Consider aspirin. Bayer AG puts 2-year or 3-year expiration dates on aspirin and says that it should be discarded after that.
 
However, Chris Allen, a vice president at the Bayer unit that makes aspirin, said the dating is "pretty conservative"; when Bayer tested 4-year-old aspirin, it remained 100% effective, he said. So why doesn't Bayer set a 4-year expiration date? Because the company often changes packaging, and it undertakes "continuous improvement programs," Mr. Allen said. Each change triggers a need for more expiration-date testing, and testing each time for a 4-year life would be impractical. Bayer has never tested aspirin beyond 4 years, Mr. Allen said. But Jens Carstensen has.
 
Dr. Carstensen, professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin's pharmacy school, who wrote what is considered the main text on drug stability, said, "I did a study of different aspirins, and after 5 years, Bayer was still excellent.”
 
Aspirin, if made correctly, is very stable.
 
Okay, I concede. My mother-in-law was right, once again.
 
And I was wrong, once again, and with a wiseacre attitude to boot. Sorry mom.
 

Now I think I'll take a swig of the 10-year old, dead package of Alka Seltzer in my medicine chest to ease the nausea I'm feeling from calculating how many billions of dollars the pharmaceutical industry bilks out of unknowing consumers every year who discard perfectly good drugs and buy new ones because they trust the industry's "expiration date labeling!"

               

[Huaco Kid]

Expiration Date...  artificial crab legs

The "best by" date is just a suggestion.  I don't need them to be "best", just "ok".

If they pass the smell test,  they'll probably pass the colon test. 

[LostinTexas]

Pretty well known stuff up there. The .mil stockpiles meds for ages. There are exceptions. Tetracyclines can become toxic with age. They can harm your kidneys. 

That is the only one I'm aware of, but I'm sure there are more. How expired does that one need to be before it can cause problems? Dunno,

 

[pipedreams]

Here this is easier to read.  What "LostinTexas" just posted, we had a discussion not long ago about this.

 

Does the expiration date on a bottle of a medication mean anything? 

If a bottle of Tylenol, for example, says something like "Do not use after June 1998," and it is August 2002, should you take the Tylenol? Should you discard it? Can you get hurt if you take it?
 
Will it simply have lost its potency and do you no good?
 
In other words, are drug manufacturers being honest with us when they put an expiration date on their medications, or is the practice of dating just another drug industry scam, to get us to buy new medications when the old ones that purportedly have "expired" are still perfectly good?
 
These are the pressing questions I investigated after my mother-in-law recently said to me, "It doesn't mean anything," when I pointed out that the Tylenol she was about to take had "expired" 4 years and a few months ago. I was a bit mocking in my pronouncement -- feeling superior that I had noticed the chemical corpse in her cabinet -- but she was equally adamant in her reply, and is generally very sage about medical issues.
 
So I gave her a glass of water with the purportedly "dead" drug, of which she took 2 capsules for a pain in the upper back. About a half hour later she reported the pain seemed to have eased up a bit.
 
I said, "You could be having a placebo effect," not wanting to simply concede she was right about the drug, and also not actually knowing what I was talking about.
I was just happy to hear that her pain had eased, even before we had our evening cocktails and hot tub dip (we were in "Leisure World," near Laguna Beach, California, where the hot tub is bigger than most Manhattan apartments, and "Heaven," as generally portrayed, would be raucous by comparison).
 
Upon my return to NYC and high-speed connection, I immediately scoured the medical data bases and general literature for the answer to my question about drug expiration labeling.
 
And voila, no sooner than I could say "Screwed again by the pharmaceutical industry," I had my answer. 

Here are the simple facts:
First, the expiration date, required by law in the United States, beginning in 1979, specifies only the date the manufacturer guarantees the full potency and safety of the drug -- it does not mean how long the drug is actually "good" or safe to use.
 
Second, medical authorities uniformly say it is safe to take drugs past their expiration date –no matter how "expired" the drugs purportedly are. Except for possibly the rarest of exceptions, you won't get hurt and you certainly won't get killed.
 
Studies show that expired drugs may lose some of their potency over time, from as little as 5% or less to 50% or more (though usually much less than the latter). Even 10 years after the "expiration date," most drugs have a good deal of their original potency.

One of the largest studies ever conducted that supports the above points about "expired drug" labeling was done by the US military 15 years ago, according to a feature story in the Wall Street Journal (March 29, 2000), reported by Laurie P. Cohen.
 
The military was sitting on a $1 billion stockpile of drugs and facing the daunting process of destroying and replacing its supply every 2 to 3 years, so it began a testing program to see if it could extend the life of its inventory.
 
The testing, conducted by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), ultimately covered more than 100 drugs, prescription and over-the-counter.
 
The results showed, about 90% of them were safe and effective as long as 15 years past their expiration date.
 
In light of these results, a former director of the testing program, Francis Flaherty, said he concluded that expiration dates put on by manufacturers typically have no bearing on whether a drug is usable for longer.
 
Mr. Flaherty noted that a drug maker is required to prove only that a drug is still good on whatever expiration date the company chooses to set. The expiration date doesn't mean, or even suggest, that the drug will stop being effective after that, nor that it will become harmful.

"Manufacturers put expiration dates on for marketing, rather than scientific, reasons, " said Mr. Flaherty, a pharmacist at the FDA until his retirement in 1999.
 
"It's not profitable for them to have products on a shelf for 10 years. They want turnover."
 
The FDA cautioned there isn't enough evidence from the program, which is weighted toward drugs used during combat, to conclude most drugs in consumers' medicine cabinets are potent beyond the expiration date.
 
Joel Davis, however, a former FDA expiration-date compliance chief, said that with a handful of exceptions -- notably nitroglycerin, insulin, and some antibiotics -- most drugs are probably as durable as those the agency has tested for the military.

"Most drugs degrade very slowly," he said. "In all likelihood, you can take a product you have at home and keep it for many years." Consider aspirin. Bayer AG puts 2-year or 3-year expiration dates on aspirin and says that it should be discarded after that.
 
However, Chris Allen, a vice president at the Bayer unit that makes aspirin, said the dating is "pretty conservative"; when Bayer tested 4-year-old aspirin, it remained 100% effective, he said. So why doesn't Bayer set a 4-year expiration date? Because the company often changes packaging, and it undertakes "continuous improvement programs," Mr. Allen said. Each change triggers a need for more expiration-date testing, and testing each time for a 4-year life would be impractical. Bayer has never tested aspirin beyond 4 years, Mr. Allen said. But Jens Carstensen has.
 
Dr. Carstensen, professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin's pharmacy school, who wrote what is considered the main text on drug stability, said, "I did a study of different aspirins, and after 5 years, Bayer was still excellent.”
 
Aspirin, if made correctly, is very stable.
 
Okay, I concede. My mother-in-law was right, once again.
 
And I was wrong, once again, and with a wiseacre attitude to boot. Sorry mom.
 

Now I think I'll take a swig of the 10-year old, dead package of Alka Seltzer in my medicine chest to ease the nausea I'm feeling from calculating how many billions of dollars the pharmaceutical industry bilks out of unknowing consumers every year who discard perfectly good drugs and buy new ones because they trust the industry's "expiration date labeling!"

[Swampfox762]

It wasn't a Thread unfortunately...my bad.  I should have made it one.  I just made this comment in my thread and was sharing what I had just found out...Here's the comment.

 

This little operation I had a couple weeks ago has sure taught me a lot about Pain medications. A LOT. 

Mainly...the Government controls EVERY pill that is a pain reliever, and how much your Dr. is allowed to give you and for how long. 

During my 2 day stay at the hospital, after the operation, I was getting 2 pills of 5 mg of Hydrocodone with 325 mg of Tylenol every 6 hours.  It worked for about 4 hrs before it started to taper off.  It's actually pretty much CRAP as far as pain medication goes.

When I was released to go home, the Dr. gave me 18 pills...18 of the same pills with no refills, which he told me was all the Govt would allow him to give me.  Take 1 pill every 8 hours for 6 days. 

After that...Go get some over the counter Extra Strength...you got it...Tylenol.  "Tylenol" Rally fucks up my stomach, and for me personally is worthless. I just had a 6 inch cut Between two ribs.  THAT **** hurts for a Long Time.

Anyhoo....

My wife went rummaging around in our cabinet where she keeps our "drugs" and came across a bottle of the same pill that was given to me after some mouth surgery I had had...5 years ago!!!  We just forgot they were even there.  Same damn pill!! Hydrocodone and tylenol.  I said, "Screw it, let me try a couple"....5 years old. 

I swear to god they worked better than the **** they gave me when I left the hospital!!!!

So, what did my Dumb ass Learn after being a "good little patient" after all these years and throwing away medication after the  expiration date??  **** THAT ****!!!  

So, for all you people who have been as stupid as I have been all these years...STOP Throwing away ANY pain medication you may get from your Dr. for ANYTHING!!!  

I'm certainly not gonna tell ya what to do or not to do with expired Pain medication,. but I have sure learned one hell of a lesson from Experience.   Ya'll Do as ya will.  As for me?  I will Never throw any medication like that away EVER again!!!

Here's a "Read" for ya if you're interested.  Any Nurses or other "medical" people we might have on this board, I'd sure like your insight, and any updated articles you may be aware of.

https://c3-preview.prosites.com/241033/wy/docs/Catalog/Expired Medications 2012.pdf

[Huaco Kid]

You can always give them the "cat test".  If he won't eat them,  they're expired.

Crab legs, that is.  Don't give your cat opioids.  Just don't.  The unholy terror will always be with you.

[jfost11]

I was working with a new guy doing stuff outside last year and I grabbed a generic bottle of zyrtec from my lunch box. The new guy asked for one since we were stirring up stuff and he started sneezing. He was giving me crap because he noticed the bottle had an expiration date in 2018. I asked him, it worked didn't it?

 

The next day we were doing the same thing and he said how he took a fresh one before getting to work and not an old one like I had. He was out there turning into a ball of snot and finally asked me for one of my old pills by lunch. He was fine in about 30 minutes. 

[LostinTexas]

Better known as Tylenol 3, Swampfox. I don't know why the infatuation with it. It doesn't do anything but constipate me, and it ain't the Tylenol part.

After a wrist surgery, I got sent home with 100 of those and told to take as needed, just not to exceed 8, IIRC a day, thanks to the Tylenol. No sleep that night. Doc called in another codeine derivative, no sleep that night either. Not a spot of relief since leaving the hospital. SO,,,,,,,,,,,I took a RX dose of Ibuprofen after a third RX was called in. I never picked up the RX, but slept like a rock while on Ibuprofen. Surgeon, good guy, said I was really weird. Most folks want higher levels of narcotics, and I took Advil. LOL. If it works, it works. No it wasn't great, but it was manageable and I could get pretty comfortable.

After my wreck, I begged for all the dilaudid they would give me, and it didn't seem to help much. Fortunately I don't remember. I asked why my night nurse was fussing me over no pain meds and muscle relaxers. OK I have no idea what they were giving me, but LostWife said that was the night after the ribs were plated and I never asked for pain meds again. They told her it would happen something like that, but she, or anyone else it seems, didn't buy in.

[Paul53]

"Bee Sting Kits" include a syringe of epinephrine. It's a clear liquid when made. If it has turned yellow it's junk. Stored too hot, cold, or in direct sunlight the date can be way off.

It has an expiration date on it but for me or my family in anaphylactic shock, I'll go by the color.

[pipedreams]

2 hours ago, Paul53 said:

"Bee Sting Kits" include a syringe of epinephrine. It's a clear liquid when made. If it has turned yellow it's junk. Stored too hot, cold, or in direct sunlight the date can be way off.

It has an expiration date on it but for me or my family in anaphylactic shock, I'll go by the color.

If I remember correctly most liquid prescription medicines don't have a good shelf life.

[Mrs.Cicero]

This applies to canned food, too.  It slowly loses some nutritional value and sometimes taste, but the two year expiration dates on the canned goods are bs.  Eating it won't hurt you.  OTOH, eating the 12 year old ketchup in my MIL's fridge is NOT a good idea.

[Swampfox762]

7 hours ago, LostinTexas said:

Better known as Tylenol 3, Swampfox. I don't know why the infatuation with it. It doesn't do anything but constipate me, and it ain't the Tylenol part.

 

Tylenol never worked for me.  Ibuprophen was my go to pain pill.  However, as of late, with some new meds prescribed by my doc, can't take that anymore.  The 2 don't work together and it can be really not good.  SO...I went down and got some Super extra strength Tylenol, and I'll be damned, it worked pretty good.  I was presently surprised!!!

[Swampfox762]

12 minutes ago, Mrs.Cicero said:

This applies to canned food, too.  It slowly loses some nutritional value and sometimes taste, but the two year expiration dates on the canned goods are bs.  Eating it won't hurt you.  OTOH, eating the 12 year old ketchup in my MIL's fridge is NOT a good idea.

I think "Dinty Moore" beef Stew will last forever!!!

[Maser]

We may have found out the real killer of George Floyd.  It wasn't Chauvin's knee that killed him, it was the expired fentanyl!  Justice for George!  Burn down Big Pharma in a "peaceful" protest! 

[LostinTexas]

18 minutes ago, Swampfox762 said:

Tylenol never worked for me.  Ibuprophen was my go to pain pill.  However, as of late, with some new meds prescribed by my doc, can't take that anymore.  The 2 don't work together and it can be really not good.  SO...I went down and got some Super extra strength Tylenol, and I'll be damned, it worked pretty good.  I was presently surprised!!!

Tylenol always worked great, and still does, for headaches and fever reducer. I'm one of the fortunate ones that can still take asparin, so I use that when possible. Ibuprofen for body or dental work pain.

I'm not on RX meds that interact with any of those yet, so still pretty good in that regard.

[railfancwb]

Just now, LostinTexas said:

Tylenol always worked great, and still does, for headaches and fever reducer. I'm one of the fortunate ones that can still take asparin, so I use that when possible. Ibuprofen for body or dental work pain.

I'm not on RX meds that interact with any of those yet, so still pretty good in that regard.

Too much Tylenol too frequently can adversely affect the liver. 

[LostinTexas]

20 minutes ago, Swampfox762 said:

I think "Dinty Moore" beef Stew will last forever!!!

Yea, Hormel made their first batch of SPAM in ~1937. They are thinking about making a second real soon.

[LostinTexas]

10 minutes ago, railfancwb said:

Too much Tylenol too frequently can adversely affect the liver. 

Yea, it'll kill you slowly and painfully. Well, too slow for your liking anyway. Liver failure ain't pretty.

 

We seems to be drifting a bit from the original thread.

[Swampfox762]

2 hours ago, LostinTexas said:

Yea, it'll kill you slowly and painfully. Well, too slow for your liking anyway. Liver failure ain't pretty.

 

We seems to be drifting a bit from the original thread.

Yup.  YEARS and years of it got my MIL.

[holyjohnson]

11 hours ago, Paul53 said:

"Bee Sting Kits" include a syringe of epinephrine. It's a clear liquid when made. If it has turned yellow it's junk. Stored too hot, cold, or in direct sunlight the date can be way off.

It has an expiration date on it but for me or my family in anaphylactic shock, I'll go by the color.

Thank you my Good man, i just tossed an old Bee Sting kit, the Juice was indeed Yellow.

i am not Allergic to Bees, its a simple Precaution for others.

[DAKA]

15 hours ago, Swampfox762 said:

I think "Dinty Moore" beef Stew will last forever!!!

That and SPAM

[NPTim]

I would strictly adhere to expiration dates of “cycline” medications; tetracycline, doxycycline, etc.

As for pain medications, we are seeing the pendulum swing in the opposite direction of “pain is what the patient says it is.”. It will swing back eventually, especially when the people that are kept in pain commit suicide from the pain, inadequately treated.

Example, we had a member here, melores (spelling?), he had neuropathy so bad it restricted his mobility severally. Then he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and placed on hospice and got all the pain medications he could tolerate. Flying in the face of ALL the experts and evidence, he became mobile and had adequate pain relief. At least he died in comfort.

Pain meds last years past expiration date. Most all, except the “cyclines” mentioned above, are good years later.

[pipedreams]

23 minutes ago, NPTim said:

I would strictly adhere to expiration dates of “cycline” medications; tetracycline, doxycycline, etc.

As for pain medications, we are seeing the pendulum swing in the opposite direction of “pain is what the patient says it is.”. It will swing back eventually, especially when the people that are kept in pain commit suicide from the pain, inadequately treated.

Example, we had a member here, melores (spelling?), he had neuropathy so bad it restricted his mobility severally. Then he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and placed on hospice and got all the pain medications he could tolerate. Flying in the face of ALL the experts and evidence, he became mobile and had adequate pain relief. At least he died in comfort.

Pain meds last years past expiration date. Most all, except the “cyclines” mentioned above, are good years later.

I have some doxycycline and made me think, checked and expiration date is 2023.