Thread: Many drugs are just fine years after they 'expire,' study finds

Many drugs are just fine years after they 'expire,' study finds

Many prescription drugs were still potent even 40 years after they had officially "expired," according to a new study. (Beth A. Keiser / Associated Press)

By Karen Kaplan Los Angeles Times October 8, 2012, 1:55 p.m.

Chances are, your medicine cabinet contains some pills that are past their expiration date. You might even have some pain relievers, some cough syrup or some sleeping pills that were purchased back when Richard Nixon was in the White House. But you can’t seem to throw them away because you suspect they might still be OK to take.

If you’ve wondered whether medicines really do need to be tossed after their expiration date, you’re got some company at the California Poison Control System, UC San Francisco and UC Irvine. Researchers from those institutions decided to satisfy their curiosity by testing the effectiveness of eight drugs that had been sitting around, unopened, in pharmacies for years after they had supposedly gone bad.

These drugs were not just a few years past their prime, these medications were a full 28 to 40 years past their official expiration dates.

The eight drugs contained a total of 15 active ingredients. The researchers couldn’t find a standard test for one of them (homatropine), so they focused their analysis on the other 14.

The tablets and capsules were dissolved and subjected to chemical analysis using a mass spectrometer. That revealed how much of the active ingredients remained in the pills.

Out of the 14 active ingredients, 12 were still at high enough concentration – 90% of the amount stated on the label – to qualify as having “acceptable potency,” the researchers found. These included:
Acetaminophen (the pain reliever in Tylenol)
Codiene (an opiate that treats pain and coughs)
Hydrocodone (an opiate used to treat moderate to severe pain)
Phenacetin (an analgesic that’s not used much anymore)
Caffeine (a stimulant)
Chlorpheniramine (an antihistamine used to treat colds and allergies)
Pentobarbital (a short-acting barbiturate)
Butalbital (a barbiturate that lasts for an intermediate period of time)
Secobarbital (a barbituate used to treat insomnia)
Phenobarbital (a barbiturate that controls seizures and relieves anxiety)
Meprobamate (a tranquilizer to treat anxiety)
Methaqualone (a sedative and muscle relaxant known by the brand name Quaaludes)

The only active ingredients that missed that cutoff were aspirin and the stimulant amphetamine.

The expiration date on a drug is usually one to five years after it was manufactured. But those dates are often set arbitrarily, since the Food and Drug Administration doesn’t require pharmaceutical makers to test how long the active ingredients will last, the researchers wrote.

They noted that the Shelf-Life Extension Program allows drugs in federal stockpiles to be retained for up to 278 months after their stated expiration date if tests show they are still potent. But some of the ingredients tested in this study remained good for 480 months – so far.

The research team’s obvious conclusion? “Our results support the effectiveness of broadly extending expiration dates for many drugs,” they wrote.

“The most important implication of our study involves the potential cost savings resulting from lengthier product expiration dating,” they added. “Given that Americans currently spend more than $300 billion annually on prescription medications, extending drug expiration dates could yield enormous health care expenditure savings.”

The analysis was published online Monday by Archives of Internal Medicine. The full report is behind a paywall, but you can can read the first page here.

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Many drugs are just fine years after they 'expire,' study finds - latimes.com

Many drugs are just fine years after they 'expire,' study finds - latimes.com

This is good to know. I say take all expired drugs from the shelves and require the pharmaceutical companies, health care providers, all members of Congress, Supreme Court and the Administration, all workers/members of the CDC, and everyone that contributed to this study to use these drugs first.

Really?..I thought drug that were expired are not effective and can give you huge side effects.

Originally Posted by bittinabren

Really?..I thought drug that were expired are not effective and can give you huge side effects.

The important part is that the drug bottles hadn't been opened since manufacture.

drugs that had been sitting around, unopened, in pharmacies for years after they had supposedly gone bad.

Really?..I thought drug that were expired are not effective and can give you huge side effects.

They can and do. One, the expiration date is the date to which the drug is guaranteed to not only be effective but safe. Once it has passed its expiration date, there are no guarantees. One bad side effect is to get no effect from the drug that you expected. Potentially dangerous if your life or immediate health depends on the drug. Second bad side effect is the possibility of contamination. The tiniest leak in a seal could lead to a contaminated drug, and since this has happened to drugs already within their expiration limit, there is no reason to suspect it would not happen on an expired drug. We have seen what contaminated drugs can do, whether caused by lousy manufacture and FDA oversight (recent meningitis outbreak) or because of some other source. Moreover, if you suffer from the use of a drug used properly and within its expiration date you have a solid basis for compensation for injury.. If you use a drug that has expired and suffer an injury or death, there is no basis for compensation. I also believe the same principles apply to expiration dates on food and drink items. Sure, you can use all of this stuff past their due date, and you may not notice anything. My view is that it is form of Russian Roullette.

The people in the article, the California Poison Control System, UC San Francisco and UC Irvine researchers, did some actual research to reach their conculions.

. . . the California Poison Control System, UC San Francisco and UC Irvine. Researchers from those institutions decided to satisfy their curiosity by testing the effectiveness of eight drugs that had been sitting around, unopened, in pharmacies for years after they had supposedly gone bad . . .

Safe to take expired prescription medication? Originally Published: April 11, 2008 - Last Updated / Reviewed On: April 25, 2008

Hi Alice,I wanted to know the dangers of taking expired pills. For instance Xanax that expired in September of 2001. I'm sure your wondering why someone would still have them but I am curious what would happen if you took them now.
Thank you,
Diney


Dear Diney,
The expiration date on both prescription and non-prescription medications signifies its full potency up until that date. However, this does not mean that drugs past this expiration date are necessarily unsafe to use or are spoiled.

Many studies and tests have been conducted on the effectiveness and side effects of using expired drugs in the last fifty years. The only case that has shown detrimental results has been the drug tetracycline causing damage to kidneys reported in the early 1960's, due to chemical changes in the drug.

But before popping a pill that's been around longer than you have, keep in mind that liquid medications and medications that have been stored in a warm, moist environment degrade more quickly than solid medications that are stored in a cool dry place. For example, a liquid antibiotic is more susceptible to becoming spoiled not only because of the liquid factor, but also because its ability to fight microbial growth can decrease over time. If you do decide to take an expired drug, take a good look at it to make sure there are no visible changes in the drug such as clumping, discoloration, or odors. Liquids should stay clear if they came that way, and the consistency should remain the same (i.e. no separated layers or cloudiness). Additionally, if your life is dependent on a certain dosage, strength, or formulation of a drug (such as heart or blood medicine), you should keep your prescriptions current and pop the expired pills straight into the trash can.

Based on the guidelines described above, you should be ok if you took recently expired Xanax, an anti-anxiety drug that comes in a hard pill form. Though expired, hard pills degrade very slowly and should retain most of their original potency. If your condition requires a full dosage of the drug, then you should visit your health care provider, who can reassess your case and renew your prescription or prescribe new drugs as s/he feels is necessary. It's never a bad idea to get an up-to-date prescription if you still need the medication — there is a general recommendation to toss expired medications, regardless of the form. This is for your safety.

All of that being said, use your own judgment and perhaps give a call to your pharmacist or health care provider. After all, good health is a collaborative effort!

Safe to take expired prescription medication? | Go Ask Alice!