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| Expiry Dates: what do you know about them? |
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| Do you know medicines have expiry dates? |
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How are expiry dates for medicines determined?
Are expiry dates simply inducements to repurchase?
Expiration dates for drugs are estimates of their shelf lives with proper storage in sealed containers, away from harmful and variable factors like heat and humidity.
The dates are based on data, called stability data, derived from testing by the manufacturers, that show the product will be good for a certain period.
There is no incentive for manufacturers to shorten the deadlines, reported a spokesperson for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). On the contrary, most manufacturers keep small inventories and make the product fresh as the need arises, and all of the product gets through the system in two or three years.
A manufacturer is not allowed to move up or to extend the date without submitting data to support it and would have to prove that a drug was stable past the original date.
It is also not recommended at all that medicines be kept past the current course of therapy, even if they have not expired, especially if there are children around.
There are no data to show that a drug is still OK for a year past the expiration date if it is still unopened.
Scientists don't know how much loss of potency could occur with out-of-date drugs, or what else might be happening, like a chemical change.
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