I could not agree with that statement less. Really am surprised anyone would write such a thing.
See, two can play that game. At least mine was based on research. I asked for your source before implying that you made it up.
Surely the expiry dates are based on potential manufacturer and pharmacist liability, more than their actual useful lives?
I wouldn’t blame someone with a duty of care from strongly discouraging the use of expired medicine, but surely a properly stored Rx doesn’t become poisonous exactly one day after the expiration date?
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Oh my goodness of course not!! But one day or even one week or one month is MILES away from referring to a medicine’s expiration date as “meaningless”.
For any medicine the expiration date is very meaningful. But of course the precise criticality varies hugely from medicine to medicine and is generally beyond the ken of the average person.
I’ve no doubt that for some medicines you could go years beyond the expiration date, take the medicine, and still have a beneficial outcome. Please to not press me for a list of medicines to which that claim would apply. I do not know.
But again, a claim the expiration date of a medicine is “meaningless” is, well, patently silly.
Really?
Everything I see on it says the dates are almost arbitrary and most drugs “expire” in 2 or 3 years. Drug makers perform basic testing to ensure the effectiveness of a drug for a period then submit it to the FDA. They don’t bother to actually test if the drugs last longer, they just test if its OK for 2 years or 3 years and go with that figure if it passes. There is NO requirement that the drug makers test if drugs last longer. They’ve no incentive to shoot for longer expiration and direct financial gain by limiting the expiration date.
If you know otherwise then please provide any specific evidence that the dates are really truly meaningful and not just an arbitrary test.
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Playing devil’s advocate, theoretically, a drug could actually expire and be less potent and/or have completely different effects.
Chemical composition can change over time. Exposure to light and oxygen can change chemical composition, and heat will speed up chemical reactions.
I have no idea whether drugs are designed to not change under such exposure, but it could possibly be a concern. The expiration dates may be arbitrary, but it’s also possible that a pill, exposed to light and oxygen in a hot environment would change the drug. Perhaps the expiration date means that a pill can withstand 2 straight years of exposure to light, so they set an expiration date at 2 years. However, most of the time, the pill would likely not be exposed to light, thus extending its useful life significantly beyond the expiration date. So, practically, maybe the expiration date doesn’t matter, but it’s not as if the drug cannot possibly change with time.
Are you suggesting that exposing non-expired medicine to light, heat, and oxygen would not make them expire sooner? I think the expiration date on the package is only valid under the recommended storage conditions. And in that case the date is again meaningless, because you couldn’t possibly know how the medicine was stored before you purchase it.
Yes, of course. This is self-evident . . . or should be. Maybe my own training in science is too ingrained and is preventing me from understanding why an average person cannot conceive of this instinctively, as I do. But I appreciate your post. Since they appear hesitant to accept my views, perhaps they will respect yours.
Yes, really. Totally.
But read up-thread where I wrote this will vary depending on the drug. I myself have taken drugs circa 20 years past expiration with no perceptible ill effects. But would I recommend that course to others in a public forum?
I would not!
Do I believe I could have taken ANY 20 year old drug with no ill effects?
I DO NOT believe that.
Why not?
Because I’m not insane.
To save money I have purchased my pharma from a Canadian Web Store front and had them delivered. It was absolutely no problem and the generic drugs delivered from Great Britain have performed as well as my American generics. In terms of expiration the exp date and lot numbers on the box matches the stamps on the foils containing the medicine.
I have also used discount cards like GoodRx and other “prescription discount cards” commonly available on line. While it might be a pain, all the pharmacies in my area have always been willing to explore their pricing with all of them and let me use the best price version. However for your next prescription you will have to do this all over again as the card (RxBIN) you used to get the best discount on a specific drug is not as good on the next drug.
I also like to transfer my Rx to get bonuses. Rite Aid gave me $25 in wellness rewards to transfer and RX that was going to be cheaper at their pharmacy. Does anyone else know or take advantage of transfer deals like this?
My insurance uses CVS/caremark as its processor. If I use their RXBin my RX gets applied to my HDHP automatically. If I used another I have to submit a paper claim, which they commonly reject for stupid reasons and I have to appeal.
Basically its hard to get the best price and have it apply to your HDHP without a fair amount of personal effort. I think pharmacy programs should allow multiple RXBins and give the customer the best price one and if one of those RxBin in an HDHP they should file a claim automatically no matter which RXBin was used for the cost, this is really a Coordination of Benefits that should be possible in this day and age.
If I understand the question correctly, I’m suggesting that the opposite is possible. I have no knowledge of pharmacology. However, exposure to those elements could speed up chemical changes, which could reduce the efficacy of the drug. It’s been proven and is accepted as scientific consensus that exposure to oxygen and light can change chemical compositions. Exposure to the elements could also increase the efficacy of the drug. It would just depend on what changes occur.
Is it possible that exposure to those elements does not change a particular chemical composition at all? 100%. Is it possible that the pharmaceutical companies have discovered a way to stop those elements from changing the drug? Absolutely. Is it possible they’ve discovered a way to limit the changes to chemical compositions based on exposure to the elements (to extend the useful life of the drug)? Absolutely, and I would imagine that they have.
My two cents worth. Drugs (and foods, other chemicals, etc.) degrade with time, and the rate of change is dependent on the ambient as noted earlier. Its very unlikely the degradation is a step function; ie, from good to bad in a day, also pointed out earlier. I think the manufacturers test the amount of degradation/decomposition/chemical change etc. at various timepoints, possibly in accelerated testing such as higher temperatures (Arrhenius type equation to calculate equivalent time at approximate room temperatures). When the change reaches some limit, such as 5% (just a guess), they may use that test duration for the expiration duration. Ideally, they would have tested that at the 5% degradation point, the drug is still efficacious. This does not rule out that even past that expiration, that the drug is still good, even when 10% or more degraded. Its just not tested that far, and unknown when it would reach that time.
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Yeah I’m not telling everyone to go take 20 year old drugs.
But the expiration dates are pretty much meaningless.
From the article I linked above it says:
“neither Cantrell nor Dr. Cathleen Clancy, associate medical director of National Capital Poison Center, a nonprofit organization affiliated with the George Washington University Medical Center, had heard of anyone being harmed by any expired drugs. Cantrell says there has been no recorded instance of such harm in medical literature.”
Its a small sample but the article also discusses how 14 drugs that were 30-40 years old in their original bottles were tested and a dozen found to be 100% effective.
You’re free to be afraid of old drugs but thinking they’ll poison you or otherwise hurt you is generally baseless.
Theres not much reason to fear expired drugs. Very old drugs are perfectly good. The US government and military is the only ones doing any kind of testing on older drugs and they’re not finding any problems.
WE as a nation are wasting literally billions of dollars throwing away perfectly good drugs.
I don’t blame people for adhering to expiration dates since they want to be safe and taking risks with drugs seems stupid. But we as a nation should be doing more to have meaningful expiration dates on drugs rather than just pissing away billions of dollars for no good reason.
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Uh oh, too late! 
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Maybe we’ll fjnd a quaalude in a museum somewhere.
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Thanks, Argyll. That pretty much puts the lie to a description of expiration dates as “meaningless”. Talk about hyperbole!!
Nope.
but yeah I don’t need to beat a dead horse and argue about it. I’m happy to remain in continued disagreement with you on the point.
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My real problem with your advice is that it’s exactly what a pharma shill would say: “only buy brand new meds from the authorized distributors, because anything else is bad for you!”
The expiration date has meaning for drugs that don’t store well (most if not all of which require refrigeration, which is why I mentioned it in my original reply), but it’s not very meaningful for others (because of everything discussed here and in the linked articles). But lets put that argument to rest. What I really want to know is did you make up the grading (“B” and “C”) in your post, or is this a convention? And please provide your sources regarding the sale of re-dated or improperly stored medicines. I was and still am genuinely curious.
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Sure, no problem. Nothing official about those appellations. Just was trying to convey the idea of a medicine possibly not perfect.
I also can accept much of what you just wrote. When you qualify that expiration dates oftentimes might be misleading, or even for certain medicines meaningless, I can agree with you readily. But my point right along has been that is not true across the board.
I think we all want to avoid misleading other readers here. I do not want stuff I write to cause another person to become ill, or attempt to save money in a manner which threatens their health.
BTW I’m not a doctor and I never worked in the medical field in any capacity. Last time I studied anything even close was high school biology, a subject I found annoying and boring and which I did not like at all. For my project I built a pretty cool mouse maze and conducted experiments running mice through it. It was not really biology but I just said WTF and did it anyway. And BTW, no mice were killed or injured during my experimentation . . . . probably much to the disgust of my biology teacher whom I also did not like.
I did a lot better later on in high school when able to take chemistry and especially even later, as a senior, physics. I actually taught the physics class for a week when our teacher had to be away (the substitute knew nothing about physics; she sat in the back while I taught). Physics was interesting. Biology sucked.