The Myth of Drug Expiration Dates

[raykeller]

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-myth-of-drug-expiration-dates

The Myth of Drug Expiration Dates â?" ProPublica

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 â?" 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.

â?oThis was very cool,â? Gerona says. â?oWho gets the chance of analyzing
drugs that have been in storage for more than 30 years?â?

The age of the drugs might have been bizarre, but the question the
researchers wanted to answer wasnâ?Tt. Pharmacies across the country â?" in
major medical centers and in neighborhood strip malls â?" 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
â?oexpiration dateâ? 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 donâ?Tt necessarily mean theyâ?Tre ineffective immediately
after they â?oexpireâ? â?" just that thereâ?Ts 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 â?" some of it buried
in practices that the medical establishment and the rest of us take for
granted. Â Weâ?Tve documented how hospitals often discard pricey new
supplies, how nursing homes trash valuable medications after patients pass
away or move out, and how drug companies create expensive combinations of
cheap drugs. Experts estimate such squandering eats up about $765 billion a
year â?" as much as a quarter of all the countryâ?Ts health care spending.

... long article ...
The 2015 commentary in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, called â?oExtending Shelf
Life Just Makes Sense,â? also suggested that drugmakers could be required
to set a preliminary expiration date and then update it after long-term
testing. An independent organization could also do testing similar to that
done by the FDA extension program, or data from the extension program could
be applied to properly stored medications.

ProPublica asked the FDA whether it could expand its extension program, or
something like it, to hospital pharmacies, where drugs are stored in stable
conditions similar to the national stockpile.

â?oThe Agency does not have a position on the concept you have proposed,â?
an official wrote back in an email.

Whatever the solution, the drug industry will need to be spurred in order to
change, says Hussain, the former FDA scientist. â?oThe FDA will have to take
the lead for a solution to emerge,â? he says. â?oWe are throwing away
products that are certainly stable, and we need to do something about it.â?

[Mr. B1ack]

With expiration dates, SOME of it has to do with pharma
companies wanting to sell more.

However that's not the whole of it.

The storage life of drugs often hinges on the CONDITIONS
of storage. Kept in a nice dry air-conditioned Beverly Hills
pharmacy many drugs can indeed be good - or usably good -
for many decades. Kept in an attic storage hole in a Manilla
tin shack pharma ... um, not so much.

The KIND of drug is also relevant. Some degrade from
oxygen and/or light exposure rather quickly while others
are tough-ass compounds.

So, the RATE at which any given drug loses potency can
be pretty variable.

Then there's a "future knowledge" issue ... when a drug is
created, they may not be SURE how long it will survive in
every storage scenerio. So, they just guess. One year is
a safe guess. Most of the time I doubt they even do any
kind of follow-up tests extending beyond a few years. Too
much trouble/expense.

And now the LAWYERS .... if a US/euro pharma/pharmacy
is selling "old" drugs - which may or may not still be at the
recommended potency - the chances of predatory lawsuits
for mega/giga-bucks is extreme nowadays. They can't risk it.
Even the NOTION that the old drugs are gonna be bad is
enough for a lawsuit artist to exploit. Remember, actual
scientific proof is NOT required for civil prosecution. The
recent case against glyphosphate weed-killer showed that.

So ... the best approach is to recycle "old" drugs to the 2nd/3rd
world at a discount price. Some profit will be realized, which is
better than no profit, and the po' folks will get a lot of discount
meds they'd die without.

IMHO, if you're looking for grand conspiracies here you're
wasting your time. It's a little of this, a little of that, adding
up to those expiration dates.

Now if you want a REAL drug scandal - check into the
potency/purity of asian-made "generic" drugs.

[Byker]

"Mr. B1ack" wrote in message
news:vppjud5n1c3ubsvd0...@4ax.com...

>
> With expiration dates, SOME of it has to do with pharma companies wanting
> to sell more.
>
> However that's not the whole of it.
>
> The storage life of drugs often hinges on the CONDITIONS of storage. Kept
> in a nice dry air-conditioned Beverly Hills pharmacy many drugs can indeed
> be good - or usably good - for many decades.

I've heard that keeping them in the fridge helps...

[Scout]

"raykeller"
<whiney_will_have_his_nose_in_my_ass_in_3_2_1@leftards_are_loosers.com.>
wrote in message news:psclbn$ldo$1...@dont-email.me...

>
> https://www.propublica.org/article/the-myth-of-drug-expiration-dates
>
> The Myth of Drug Expiration Dates â?" ProPublica

Not a problem....as long as the drug manufacturers are no longer liable for
bad medications past their current expiration date.

Now....who wants to step up and assume the liability is someone dies because
the drug was no longer as effective or it had a toxic effect due to age?

Come on, these suits usually start off with at least 7 figures and go up
from there.

Make it a class action and you're talking 10 figures or more.

So.... who's willing to assume the liability?

You Ray?

[Mr. B1ack]

Often ... unless they're something suspended
in an oil or water. Dry hard pills will do the best.
Put 'em Tupperware purged with nitrogen and
and then in the fridge they'll be good for 100 years.

In any case ... the pharmas HAVE to take THE
worst possible storage conditions into account
when they set expiration dates. I visualize some
hut-clinic in Congo ....

[Scout]

"Scout" <me4...@removethis.this2.spam.centurylink.net> wrote in message
news:psdtjq$voj$4...@dont-email.me...

<crickets>

[Mr. B1ack]

On Tue, 13 Nov 2018 21:14:25 -0500, "Scout"
<me4...@removethis.this2.spam.centurylink.net> wrote:

>
>
>"Scout" <me4...@removethis.this2.spam.centurylink.net> wrote in message
>news:psdtjq$voj$4...@dont-email.me...
>>
>>
>> "raykeller"
>> <whiney_will_have_his_nose_in_my_ass_in_3_2_1@leftards_are_loosers.com.>
>> wrote in message news:psclbn$ldo$1...@dont-email.me...
>>>
>>> https://www.propublica.org/article/the-myth-of-drug-expiration-dates
>>>

>>> The Myth of Drug Expiration Dates ā?" ProPublica

>>
>> Not a problem....as long as the drug manufacturers are no longer liable
>> for bad medications past their current expiration date.
>>
>> Now....who wants to step up and assume the liability is someone dies
>> because the drug was no longer as effective or it had a toxic effect due
>> to age?
>>
>> Come on, these suits usually start off with at least 7 figures and go up
>> from there.
>>
>> Make it a class action and you're talking 10 figures or more.
>>
>> So.... who's willing to assume the liability?
>>
>> You Ray?
>
><crickets>

You nailed it. Pharmas HAVE to assume THE worst possible
storage conditions and set expiration dates accordingly. It's
all because of the lefts beloved ambulance-chasers.

[Klaus Schadenfreude]

Winston_Smith wrote

> On 11/12/2018 11:47 AM, raykeller wrote:
>>
>
> He's dead. How did he go?
>

They shoved a shotgun up his ass and let fly with both barrels.


Not much left except for blood and shit.



It happens to all Trumpers eventually.

[Klaus Schadenfreude]

[Klaus Schadenfreude]

[Klaus Schadenfreude]