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
I asked this same question to my cousin who’s a pharmacologist. Her answer was essentially it truly means very little for the vast majority of medications. They do slowly degrade after a while as the active ingredients break down over time. However most medications don’t go bad like food and won’t harm you if you take them post expiration. They just won’t be as effective. THAT is why the expiration date is there. It’s the drug company saying “we no longer guarantee the effectiveness of this drug after this date.”
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