Take Charge of Your Health - Expired or Not: That Is The Question

The American Medical Association recommends going through your medicine cabinet
once a year.
-AMA

Did you ever wonder about the expired drugs in your medicine cabinet? Are they still good years later? And if not, how do you get rid of them? With the New Year, many of us are poised to make a fresh start and sometimes that looks like purging things that have outlived their usefulness.

To answer the question do pills expire? The quick answer is it depends. That begs the question of why are there effective dates written on pill bottles in the first place? In 1979 a law was passed in the US that required drug manufacturers to put an expiration date on their products. This is the date where the company can guarantee the full potency and safety of the drug. However, a massive study in 2019 undertaken by the FDA found that 90% of more than 100 drugs (prescription and over the counter) were good to use even 15 years after the expiration date. Moreover, sometimes expiration dates have been extended for certain medications. You can check whether this applies to any drugs you may have at this website. To prolong drug efficacy, pharmacists suggest storing medications in a cool place (like a refrigerator); ironically, the bathroom with its changing temperatures and periods of high humidity is not the best place.

In truth, expiration dates are not really a scam promulgated by big pharma to keep us restocking (and rebuying). The dates also have to do with the timing of bringing drugs to market. If a drug manufacturer had to do longer expiration date testing, it would slow their ability to release new and improved medications, which would further delay us in having access to improved meds that could help in disease management.

Some drugs, however, are actually time limited. Drugs that are not good past their expiration date include nitroglycerin, insulin, eye drops (for bacterial reasons), and liquid antibiotics, (the jury is out on tetracycline). Furthermore, some prescription drugs have a “beyond use” date instead of an “expiration date.” The beyond use date is typically sooner than the medication’s original expiration date because the pharmacist often has to handle, mix, then move a drug into a new container; doing so reduces the useable life expectancy of the medication.

So now that you are ready to purge - how do you do it?  According to the FDA most drugs can be discarded in the trash, though they suggest mixing with coffee grounds, dirt, or cat litter to be less appealing to children or pets who might find them. Drugs that have abuse potential should not be thrown away but rather can be flushed or dropped into the secure medical disposal boxes found at pharmacies.

According to the Harvard Health Letter (August 2020) “If the expiration date passed a few years ago and it’s important that your drug is absolutely 100% effective, you might want to consider buying a new bottle.” When in doubt, pharmacists can answer your questions about the effectiveness and safety of any drug.