I have tons of old medications from prescriptions that I never finished, or giant Costco bottles of Advil etc. A doctor that I know told me that the expiration dates mean nothing and that they are just Big Pharma’s way to insert some planned obsolescence into their products.
Is this true? If not, what actually happens to the medications after their expiration dates?
In: Chemistry
Once they’ve passed the date, the manufacturer no longer guarantees they’ll work as advertised.
Now obviously they’re not fine on March 31st and totally useless on April 1st, but they do chemically degrade over time and may eventually transform into some useless powder or sludge or a mystery chemical.
The exact process of chemical breakdown, how long it takes, and how hazardous or inert the resulting products will be varies considerably between medications. Some are small molecules theoretically stable for decades, others are complicated structures that break down rapidly.
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