Would you spend a rupee if it saved you Rs 677? Eagerly, perhaps. The US Department of Defense has been saving billions of dollars for 30 years by continuing to use 'expired' medicines in its stock after testing them. Last year, the tests--part of its Shelf Life Extension Program--cost $3.1 million and saved $2.1 billion. Are drugs safe to use past their 'expiry' date? If they are, why do they come printed with expiry dates only 2-3 years from the date of manufacture? A recent article on ProPublica 'That Drug Expiration Date May Be More Myth Than Fact' shows why drug companies ought to revise their expiry schedules.

When Lee Cantrell, a toxicologist who helps run the California Poison Control System, and Roy Gerona, a University of California, San Francisco researcher who specialises in analysing chemicals, started testing leftover stocks of pills from the 1960s, they were surprised to find that "a dozen of the 14 compounds were still as potent as they were when they were manufactured, some at almost 100% of their labeled concentrations."

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Have we been 'expiring' perfectly good drugs? - Times of India