Medication Expiration Dates Cheat Consumers: Lawsuit October 30, 2012 | By Amy O'Connor

[*GG*]

Have you ever tossed an expensive bottle of prescription or over-the-counter drugs because they had “expired”? A class action lawsuit claims these dates are basically bogus, made up to goose replacement sales by drug makers who know the drugs are good for years, even decades, after the “use by” date.
The class action suit, filed in Missouri, accuses Pfizer, Bayer, and Johnson & Johnson of using “unconscionable, unfair, deceptive, unethical and illegal” methods to get consumers to throw away their products when expiration date has passed, though the companies know “that if stored properly these medications can and do remain chemically stable, safe and effective long after those dates.
http://news.health.com/2012/10/30/prescription-drug-expiration-dates-cheat-consumers-lawsuit/

 

[AFCFS]

Bookmarked it. I knew this to be true but not to the extent of 15 years "Studies conducted by major medical research organizations and the Food and Drug Administration have found that 90% of more than 100 drugs, both prescription and over-the-counter, were perfectly good to use even 15 years after the expiration date."

I would normally keep meds for 5-10 years. I have read that some antibiotics do not fair as well, but do not have a source for that. I have also heard from some docs hat you may get a 5%-10% degradation in performance on some meds after a long period of time, but as long as that was not a vital factor they would be OK.

I did find this, about the shelf life of vitamin D, but also take it with a grain of salt as the source is not "the best," it was written in 2005 and there seems to be very little if any follow-up/related info, except for some note here and there of D2 shelf life being shorter than D3, but without much detail, or similar. On occasion, I have found that people on the "survivalist forums" are big into this - researching and looking at shelf life and storage conditions.

But overall, the article just shows the greed and power play of Big Pharma.