Are Expired Medications OK to Take?

There is a lot of confusion surrounding expiration dates on over-the-counter and prescription drugs. Some people use the stamped date as a loose guideline, others adhere to it strictly, and a few keep their bathroom cabinets stocked with outdated pills indefinitely. One internist, Sharon Bergquist, assistant professor of medicine at Emory University in Atlanta, explains when to get rid of that eye ointment, and why an out-of-date aspirin might be just fine to take.

 Is it safe to take expired medication?

They might be okay, but you probably shouldn't.

 The Myth of Drug Expiration Dates

Hospitals and pharmacies are required to toss expired drugs, no matter how expensive or vital. Meanwhile the FDA has long known that many remain safe and potent for years longer.

 Vitamin Expiration Dates

Vitamins and dietary supplements are not required to carry expiration dates on their labels. This is one area where supplements differ from prescription drugs and over-the-counter medications, which are subject to more stringent regulations. If companies want to print a “use by” or “best by” date on their supplement labels, they can do so voluntarily. But they are then required to honor those claims, said Tod Cooperman, the president of ConsumerLab.com, a popular independent testing company.

 What’s the Difference Between Beyond-Use Date and Expiration Date?

A beyond-use date is the last date you can safely use a compounded medication. It’s determined based on several factors by the pharmacy making the medication. An expiration date is the last date a manufacturer can guarantee the potency and safety of a medication. It’s determined by stability testing data from the manufacturer.

Are Expired Drugs Effective?

Put simply, the expiration date means that the manufacturer has proven that the product will still work at that time. It absolutely does not mean that it will necessarily stop working a day, a month, a year, or five years after that date.

Drug Expiration Dates Are Often Meaningless

And we waste billions of dollars thinking otherwise.

Drug Expiration Dates — Do They Mean Anything?

It turns out that the expiration date on a drug does stand for something, but probably not what you think it does. Since a law was passed in 1979, drug manufacturers are required to stamp an expiration date on their products. This is the date at which the manufacturer can still guarantee the full potency and safety of the drug.

Drug expiry debate: the myth and the reality

The expiration date is the final day that the manufacturer guarantees the full potency and safety of a medication. Drug expiration dates exist on most medication labels, including prescription, over-the-counter (OTC) and dietary (herbal) supplements.

Expired Medications: Dangerous or Just Less Effective?

Most people pay close attention to the use-by dates on foods like canned goods, meat and milk. They know that eating spoiled food can be harmful and watch carefully for signs that it has gone bad. But what about medications? Are expiration dates really important? University Hospitals pharmacist, James Reissig, PharmD, MS, BCPS responds to frequently asked questions about over-the-counter and prescription medications and why it’s important to pay attention to the expiration dates.

Explainer: do we need to follow medication use-by dates?

So are they really out-of-date, or would it be okay to take them just this once? Well, the answer varies, depending on the type of medication, how it has been stored, over what period of time and whether it’s still in its original, sealed container.

Finding A Drug's Real Expiration Date

It's a relatively common occurrence: You open the medicine cabinet only to find the expiration date on your prescription drugs has passed. But that doesn't necessarily mean the medication has gone bad, says drug expert Joe Graedon -- who has a consumer call-in show on public radio.

Help Patients Understand Drug Expiration Dates

It is not recommended for patients to use expired medications because it remains unclear how much potency is retained. Patients should not be tempted to use expired medications. However, if a patient happens to ingest an expired medication, which often occurs with OTC medications such as acetaminophen, there is no need for panic. There have been no published reports of human toxicity due to ingestion, injection, or topical application of a current drug formulation after its expiration.

How Dangerous is it to Take Expired Drugs?

"Long story short, if it is a tablet or capsule and is being used for a non-serious disease, where the results of sub-potency aren't devastating, it's likely okay to take it up to a year or two after the expiration date," says C. Michael White, head of the department of pharmacy practice at the University of Connecticut's School of Pharmacy.

Is it ok to use medications past their expiration dates?

The next time my wife starts throwing out expired medicine, I’ll remind her that in the military study I mentioned above, the savings amounted to more than $260 million by keeping expired medications. We may not save that much. And we don’t have the FDA to test and oversee extensions on our medicines’ expiration dates. But there is a fair amount of evidence that medications stored properly, appear intact and are not one of the exceptions mentioned above, are likely to be safe to take. For many common conditions, such as allergies, headaches or back pain, I’m willing to take the risk of applying my own, modest extension to the expiration date.

Many Medicines Are Potent Years Past Expiration Dates

"Manufacturers put expiration dates on for marketing, rather than scientific, reasons," says Mr. Flaherty, a pharmacist at the FDA until his retirement last year. "It's not profitable for them to have products on a shelf for 10 years. They want turnover."

Proper interpretation of expiration date format

A new USP standard for expressing expiration dates that utilizes this format will become official in 2023. Manufacturers will be allowed to use YYYY-MM for numerical dates (e.g., 2021-01, 2021/01) or alphanumeric dates where months must be displayed using at least three letters in one of the following formats...

That Drug Expiration Date May Be More Myth Than Fact

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 — 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?

This Is How Long Party Drugs Keep for

Do drugs expire? A question you will have almost certainly asked yourself, answered.

We Tried to Figure Out When Your Drug Stash Will Expire

For that moment you dig out a baggie from god knows when.

What Happens If You Take Medication Past Its Expiration Date?

Here’s what experts had to say about over-the-counter drugs’ expiration dates, what happens when you take expired medication, and how to stay prepared for cold and flu season.

Which expiration dates actually matter?

“It is recommended you avoid using medications past their expiration date,” says Anneliesa Henslee, the associate director of specialty retail pharmacy at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. “There may be less benefit from taking an expired medication, so symptom control may not occur and conditions for which the medications are prescribed may worsen.” Some medications also break down into harmful compounds past their expiration date, which could lead to unintended side effects if ingested, says Henslee. The use of expired oral antibiotic tetracycline, which is typically prescribed for bacterial infections, was linked to a kidney disorder called Fanconi syndrome. Symptoms like nausea and vomiting were reported two to eight days after taking the expired drug. In general, taking expired antibiotics that are only sub-potent can lead to antibiotic resistance. Moreover, certain expired medications, like liquid suspensions, may be at risk of bacterial growth.