Posted on 07/20/2017 7:35:05 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
The box of prescription drugs had been forgotten in a back closet of a retail pharmacy for so long that some of the pills predated the 1969 moon landing. Most were 30 to 40 years past their expiration dates — possibly toxic, probably worthless.
But to Lee Cantrell, who helps run the California Poison Control System, the cache was an opportunity to answer an enduring question about the actual shelf life of drugs: Could these drugs from the bell-bottom era still be potent?
Cantrell called Roy Gerona, a University of California, San Francisco, researcher who specializes in analyzing chemicals. Gerona had grown up in the Philippines and had seen people recover from sickness by taking expired drugs with no apparent ill effects.
“This was very cool,” Gerona says. “Who gets the chance of analyzing drugs that have been in storage for more than 30 years?”
The age of the drugs might have been bizarre, but the question the researchers wanted to answer wasn’t. Pharmacies across the country — in major medical centers and in neighborhood strip malls — routinely toss out tons of scarce and potentially valuable prescription drugs when they hit their expiration dates.
Gerona and Cantrell, a pharmacist and toxicologist, knew that the term “expiration date” was a misnomer. The dates on drug labels are simply the point up to which the Food and Drug Administration and pharmaceutical companies guarantee their effectiveness, typically at two or three years. But the dates don’t necessarily mean they’re ineffective immediately after they “expire” — just that there’s no incentive for drugmakers to study whether they could still be usable.
ProPublica has been researching why the U.S. health care system is the most expensive in the world. One answer, broadly, is waste....
(Excerpt) Read more at propublica.org ...
Waste not, want not bump
How is it sour creme has an expiration date? It’s sour already!
The other drug that goes bad reliably is nitroglycerine in tablet form.
Angina patients can tell if it is potent when they take it.
The old pills don't work as well.
I welcome this kind of study, because homeless shelters and medical missions get drugs all the time that mainstream retailers are legally unable to sell because of the expiration date; nevertheless the mission workers would like to know if they are still actually potent and safe.
“...She also takes pans with minor amount of food in them out to the yard to dump them. ...”
My wife dumps old cooking oil and stuff on a board out by the wood pile. I saw an ancient opossum licking on it. It could hardly move, but that kept it alive. I started chucking bread and veggies down off the deck. I don’t like feeding animals, but in their senior years ... ???
I’ll bet she thinks we have government schools because parents and teachers got together and devised the best possible system to make sure that all children get a quality education and an equal start in life.
I’ll bet she thinks we have evening news on TV because the networks know that our institutions can best protect our freedom when we have an informed citizenry.
Here’s a good laugh for you...
I just looked at the table next to my desk where I keep my vitamins and supplements.
I have there a bottle of Braggs’ raw, unpasteurized cider vinegar “with the Mother.”
You guessed it - it has a “freshness date” on it!
I have to hurry up because according to this I only have till May of 2022.
I guess after that date, it (along with the sour cream) will “go good.”
Isomers aren’t always so stable.
“I wonder about Epipen.”
I’ve kept clear glass ampules of 1:1000 epinephrine in my emergency kit in the past. Not too long after the expiration dates they turned a nasty dark brown color. I didn’t have a way to test them so I tossed them. Epinephrine can be a critical life-saving drug that may mean the difference between life and death in an emergency.
Probably should dispose of expired Epi-pens too (which are one of the biggest rip-offs in the world. What would you expect from a pharmaceutical company run by a big-time hillary supporter?)
I want to comment but am so horrified that I can’t think of anything to say except that I feel your wife’s pain.
My husband’s food safety practices were appalling. Thankfully he changed...in my presence, anyway.
I have a bottle of 13 year old Tylenol that seems to work fine.
Let me guess: Now that you're married, you find that the slime actually tastes pretty good.
ping
I always thought the slime helped spices stick to the meat.
Same with yogurt. How can spoiled milk be expired? (OK, maybe if there’s penicillin mold growing on it but maybe not.) I’ve eaten sealed containers of yogurt that were 3-4 months past expiration and though the flavor had a little more ZING than fresh-dated stuff it was fine.
“It would be nice if they didn’t have to be replaced annually.”
They don’t. As long as the liquid hasn’t turned dark they’re fine. If you read the fine print even the thieving manufacturer says so.
L
Gee I wonder how many million$ drug companies make by encouraging us to clean out our medicine cabinets?
It’s like Murphy’s Law, the week after I throw out an antibiotic, I’ll wish I had it.
I was about to post my story about my wisdom tooth, three year-old Oxycodone and my research about the defense department hiring the FDA to investigate the true shelf life of drugs, but I’ve had too much wine tonight.
Maybe tomorrow.
Gets moldy and gross
Very good, perceptive article that can lead to a lot of further research on “drug expiration dates” and possibly to great financial savings as well as “drug” donations.
During the Vietnam war, a lot of us donated small soap bar pieces to be reprocessed and sent to our guys in S. Vietnam and to charities who worked on health issues there.
I watched people wash their clothes in the canals, get drinking water for it, wash themselves in it, and possibly relieve themselves in or near it [Don’t ask me about the cesspool outside of fake VC leader Madame Binh’s “Little Red School” headquarters. It’s enough to make you puke” - Ben Tre City, Khien Hoa Province, Nov. 1970).
Soap donations helped many orphanages and “chosen” schools (i.e. those helped by American forces in the area).
Cambodia was even worse.
My sister died in March and we found a lot of both old and new medicines in her medicine chest. We had to get rid of all of them. This often included medicines she had an allergic reaction to on the first or second pill. Therefor 28 or more often were trashed.
THIS IS PURE STUPIDITY. When a nearly acquired drug is not used up, it should be recycled through a medical processing group that checks its ingredients and potency for viability.
Then they should certified as usable and donated to local health clinics or, in the case of the doctor from Venezuela, to places where “socialist medicine” will kill you (for lack thereof).
Common sense at the FDA has been absent for far too long. It is time to get them off their asses and into the 21st Century.
Very good, perceptive article that can lead to a lot of further research on “drug expiration dates” and possibly to great financial savings as well as “drug” donations.
During the Vietnam war, a lot of us donated small soap bar pieces to be reprocessed and sent to our guys in S. Vietnam and to charities who worked on health issues there.
I watched people wash their clothes in the canals, get drinking water for it, wash themselves in it, and possibly relieve themselves in or near it [Don’t ask me about the cesspool outside of fake VC leader Madame Binh’s “Little Red School” headquarters. It’s enough to make you puke” - Ben Tre City, Khien Hoa Province, Nov. 1970).
Soap donations helped many orphanages and “chosen” schools (i.e. those helped by American forces in the area).
Cambodia was even worse.
My sister died in March and we found a lot of both old and new medicines in her medicine chest. We had to get rid of all of them. This often included medicines she had an allergic reaction to on the first or second pill. Therefor 28 or more often were trashed.
THIS IS PURE STUPIDITY. When a nearly acquired drug is not used up, it should be recycled through a medical processing group that checks its ingredients and potency for viability.
Then they should certified as usable and donated to local health clinics or, in the case of the doctor from Venezuela, to places where “socialist medicine” will kill you (for lack thereof).
Common sense at the FDA has been absent for far too long. It is time to get them off their asses and into the 21st Century.
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