Do all medicines have same expiry?

August 6, 2011

The article does mention some interesting facts but it views the whole scenario too simply. Most drugs will definitely maintain potency even after their expiry date and ADRs due to toxic degradation products are not common as the formulations are made to be non toxic, right from the onset. But then expiry date is more significant in the light that many times physical degradation proceeds much faster in humid and hot conditions, like in India. Stress testing that is done for determining the expiry date is after all a simulation and has it's pros and cons. It would be unwise to totally neglect the expiry date and believe that the formulation still retains it's potency.

Sent from my iPadOn Aug 6, 2011, at 5:19 PM, " Vijay " <drvijaythawani@...> wrote:

Below: an article sent by my friend.

Indeed probing:

- Do medicines " expire "

- Do all medicines have same expiry period?

Vijay

----------------------------------------------------

DO MEDICATIONS REALLY EXPIRE ?

By Altschuler

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 databases and general literature for the answer

to my question about drug expiration labelling. 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 " labelling 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.

{http://www.mercola.com/2000/apr/2/drug_expiration.htm} 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

far 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. , however, a former FDA expiration-date

compliance chief, said that with a handful of exceptions -- notably

nitroglycerin, insulin, and some liquid 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 dates on aspirin

and says that it should be discarded after that. However, , a vice president at the Bayer unit that makes aspirin, said the dating is " pretty conservative " ; when Bayer has 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. 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. 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 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 labelling. "

August 6, 2011

Drugs are chemicals and chemical reactions can occur so it will not be wise to assume that the expiry dates can be neglected or overlooked. They can get spoilt even before the expiry dates if they are not properly stored at correct temperature. In Africa, some places have normal room temperature as high as 40 degree centigrade. Good storage condition is very important.The expiry date can also serve as a defence for the pharmaceutical company in case ADRs occur if anybody takes the drug after expiration.Opanuga Olabisi Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTNFrom: Arif Hashmi <drarifhashmi@...>Sender: netrum Date: Sat, 6 Aug 2011 18:04:35 +0530netrum <netrum >Reply netrum Subject: Re: Do all medicines have same "Expiry"? The article does mention some interesting facts but it views the whole scenario too simply. Most drugs will definitely maintain potency even after their expiry date and ADRs due to toxic degradation products are not common as the formulations are made to be non toxic, right from the onset. But then expiry date is more significant in the light that many times physical degradation proceeds much faster in humid and hot conditions, like in India. Stress testing that is done for determining the expiry date is after all a simulation and has it's pros and cons. It would be unwise to totally neglect the expiry date and believe that the formulation still retains it's potency.Sent from my iPadOn Aug 6, 2011, at 5:19 PM, " Vijay " <drvijaythawani@...> wrote: Below: an article sent by my friend.Indeed probing:- Do medicines " expire " - Do all medicines have same expiry period?Vijay----------------------------------------------------DO MEDICATIONS REALLY EXPIRE ?By AltschulerDoes 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 databases and general literature for the answer to my question about drug expiration labelling. 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 " labelling 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. {http://www.mercola.com/2000/apr/2/drug_expiration.htm} 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 far 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. , however, a former FDA expiration-date compliance chief, said that with a handful of exceptions -- notably nitroglycerin, insulin, and some liquid 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 dates on aspirin and says that it should be discarded after that. However, , a vice president at the Bayer unit that makes aspirin, said the dating is " pretty conservative " ; when Bayer has 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. 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. 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 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 labelling. "

August 6, 2011

Thanks Arif. But the article is worth giving a thought? I still have some

queries:

How is it that when there was no expiry on the medicines, they were still

consumed?

And then how were the medicines consumed with varied expiry thereafter? All

medicines did not have same three year expiry in the beginning

Do other complimentary medicines, in allopathic formulations, also carry expiry?

If it is formulation disintegration then it should be occuring in those also.

Vijay

>

> Below: an article sent by my friend.

> Indeed probing:

> - Do medicines " expire "

> - Do all medicines have same expiry period?

> Vijay

> ----------------------------------------------------

> DO MEDICATIONS REALLY EXPIRE ?

> By Altschuler

>

> 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 databases and general literature for the answer

> to my question about drug expiration labelling. 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 " labelling 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.

> {http://www.mercola.com/2000/apr/2/drug_expiration.htm} 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

> far 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. , however, a former FDA expiration-date

> compliance chief, said that with a handful of exceptions -- notably

> nitroglycerin, insulin, and some liquid 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 dates on aspirin

> and says that it should be discarded after that. However, , a

> vice president at the Bayer unit that makes aspirin, said the dating is

> " pretty conservative " ; when Bayer has 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. 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. 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 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 labelling. "

>

August 6, 2011

Thanks Opanuga. So isn't it true that expiry on medicines is more to serve the

interest of manufacturing company if it is in defence for no liability if ADRs

occur after expired medicines are consumed?