Did you guys know that the expiry date on your products does not mean that's when your product expires? It's when the preservative expires. So, as my mom would say, it only says best before, not bad after, so eat it. The Department of Defense studied this, and mom's partially right. But her and her mom were talking about different things. There's food, supplements, and drugs. Food has best if used by dates, which are not federally required. Manufacturers voluntarily put them there to tell you when the food will be at its best flavor or quality. It's not about safety. in some states that require it for foods like dairy, eggs, or meat. Drugs have expiration dates legally required since 1979. Technically, even if there was a magic drug that never expired, they would still have to put a date on the bottle. The expiration date is the final date at which the manufacturer guarantees the potency and safety of the medication when stored under normal conditions. When submitting a drug for FDA approval, manufacturers have to submit stability data ran a two-year study, that's all they can list. It's why back in 2021, a lot of those rapid COVID tests shipped with only three-month expiration dates because they wanted them on the market ASAP and they only had data for the first three months at that point. But then a while later, they extended those dates as their stability studies kept running and they got more data in, so they resubmitted it. But the DOD is responsible for the national drug stockpile, a massive store pharmaceuticals that they keep for national emergencies. And they like cost savings, so they run something called the Shelf Life Extension Program, or SLEP, which tests drugs way past their exercise. They tested 122 drugs stored under ideal conditions and found that 88% of them should have their expiration dates extended by at least one year, with an average extension of 5.5 years and a max of 23. Most solid pills are very stable, with a very gradual drop in potency after manufacture, and no sudden drop-off due to some sort of expiring preservative. If only pharmaceutical companies were forced to test and extend the expiration dates on these medications as long as possible, instead of how it is now, with the US population spending on new drugs every year. But liquid drugs can get bacterial contamination, so it's very important to throw those away after the expiration date. And for pills, be careful because you really don't know. And supplements are not legally required to have expiration dates, but if they do put them on the bottle, they are forced to have the data to back it up.
Additional notes
POLL: How many bottles of expired medication do you think you have lying around? 🤔 💊 #science #health #edutok #learnontiktok
References
- Source named in transcript: Department of Defense/FDA Shelf Life Extension Program (SLEP). No direct source URL was listed in the workbook row.
- Source named in transcript: FDA drug expiration/stability data requirements. No direct source URL was listed in the workbook row.