Can drugs expire?

Besides short-term use drugs, many drugs can take longer than the date printed on the packaging.

Since 1979, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has asked pharmaceutical companies to write an expiration date on prescription and over-the-counter medicines. However, that does not mean your medicine will be broken in the same way as a box of expired milk. The day you see it printed on the medicine bottle is the date the drug manufacturer ensures the safety and efficacy of the medicine. However, how long the drugs are really safe and effective is still a controversial issue.

In addition to some short-term drugs such as insulin, liquid antibiotics, many drugs can last much longer than the date printed on their packaging. However, not everyone knows that. Poison control centers occasionally receive calls for advice from people who accidentally take expired drugs.

According to Lee Cantrell, director of the San Diego Division of the California Poison Control System, there have not been any documents about expired drugs causing any problems in humans.

"The effectiveness of the drug may decline over time, but there is very little research on this issue," he said.

A few years ago, Cantrell had a rare opportunity to examine some of the older drugs including antihistamines, painkillers and weight loss pills found in the back of a pharmacy. "We found that these drugs, some of them expired for at least 40 years, still retain their full effect," Cantrell said.

That study was published on JAMA Internal Medicine in 2012. In 2017 Cantrell published another study showing EpiPens, expensive auto-injections used to treat life-threatening allergic reactions. , still 84% valid after more than four years from the expiration date. Therefore, in an emergency, an expired EpiPen may be used as a temporary option. The United States also has a stockpile of drugs that may be needed in emergencies such as terrorist attacks or outbreaks of diseases.

In 1986, the FDA and the US Department of Defense began the Term Expansion Program (SLEP) to save the cost of replacing expired drugs in the stockpile. A 2006 SLEP study tested 122 different drugs stored under ideal conditions. As a result, the expiration date of most drugs in stockpiles can last an average of about 4 years. In 2016, this program helped save 2.1 billion dollars.

However, FDA still warns consumers should not use expired drugs because some expired drugs are at risk of developing bacteria that lead to more serious diseases and antibiotic resistance.

According to Live Science