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When Does Medicine Expire?

Aired August 28, 2003 - 13:21   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Now to medical news. Everyone knows the frustration. It's the middle of the night. You're coughing. You go to the medicine cabinet to get some relief and you find out the medication is past the expiration date. But could you take it anyway?
Medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen join us now with some answers.

Oh, boy. And if you saw my medicine cabinet, as soon as I saw this was what you were going to be talking about, I'm tuning in.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: We were going to break into your house last night and actually go into your medicine cabinet.

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIPS: My husband would be thrilled. He would clean out half the bathroom, believe me.

COHEN: That's right. That's right.

But, instead, what we did is, we had two producers go through their medicine cabinets. And this is just a small sample of the expired medications that they found. Let's take a look. These vitamins and the Visine that we have here, those expired in April of this year, so just a few months ago. That, I suppose, wasn't too bad.

PHILLIPS: They're not even open.

(CROSSTALK)

COHEN: That's right. They're not even open. They didn't even use them.

The eardrops and the -- the eardrops right here and the ibuprofen that we have here and this anti-fungal cream, those expired in 2002. My personal favorite is this Tylenol unopened in its original packaging that expired in September of 1998. What it was still doing in the cabinet, we don't know.

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIPS: They're obviously sleeping all right.

COHEN: That's right. I guess they didn't need it. But, boy, are they going to be mad when they go for this. But many people have wondered, do you really need to throw these away? Of course, the drug companies are only too happy to have you throw them away, because then you need to get some more stuff. And so some people have said that perhaps the drug companies are putting these expiration dates on just so that they can get you to go out and buy some more medications.

Well, the military wondered about this. The military was sitting on this huge stockpile of expired medicines. And they were wondering, should we throw them away? Should we not?

So they actually did a test. And it's now considered one of the best tests of this whole issue. They looked at about 312 drugs and found that many were fine as long as nine years after their expiration date. And that's certainly -- that study certainly got people talking. And the American Medical Association has now asked pharmaceutical companies to study the issue to see if these expiration dates really, truly do make sense.

PHILLIPS: Ah, so a lot of them are still OK.

COHEN: A lot of them were fine.

PHILLIPS: All right, so what's the best way, then, to store them to keep their potency?

COHEN: Store them the way the military does, actually. Some people say that the military found that their drugs were doing, by and large, OK because they stored them so well.

And that is in a cool, dry place. The worst place that you want to store it, actually, is in the bathroom, which is where most of us have our medicine cabinets. Bathrooms get very humid. They also have a lot of temperature fluctuations. It's hot when you take a shower. Then it gets cold. Also, don't put it in the refrigerator, because that can also get very humid.

Do store it in a dry, cool place. And that makes a big difference when you are talking about the life of your medicine.

PHILLIPS: Oh, my gosh. We've got them both in the bathroom and the refrigerator.

All right, so, bottom line, what do you do with the expired medicine?

COHEN: Unfortunately, all the experts say that you really do have to throw them out. And I said to them, do you throw them out? Is that what you do when you come across an expired medicine? And they said: Guilty as charged. Sometimes we don't.

Because the truth is, is that, for many, many medicines, they're going to be perfectly fine past their expiration date. But others are not. And you can't really make the judgment all by yourself. Some of the things that can happen with expired medicines, uncoated tablets can disintegrate. Ibuprofen and nitroglycerine can evaporate, so they're not going to hurt you, but they're not going to be effective.

And tetracycline, which is an antibiotic, is one of the ones that can actually be toxic. There are some medicines that can actually become toxic if they're stored for too long. So the bottom line is, you just plain don't know and so you really need to throw it out.

PHILLIPS: All right, we'll be doing some housecleaning.

(CROSSTALK)

COHEN: There you go. Just go through it all. Get rid of them.

PHILLIPS: Thank you. All right.

COHEN: OK.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired August 28, 2003 - 13:21   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KYRA PHILLIPS, CNN ANCHOR: Now to medical news. Everyone knows the frustration. It's the middle of the night. You're coughing. You go to the medicine cabinet to get some relief and you find out the medication is past the expiration date. But could you take it anyway?
Medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen join us now with some answers.

Oh, boy. And if you saw my medicine cabinet, as soon as I saw this was what you were going to be talking about, I'm tuning in.

ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: We were going to break into your house last night and actually go into your medicine cabinet.

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIPS: My husband would be thrilled. He would clean out half the bathroom, believe me.

COHEN: That's right. That's right.

But, instead, what we did is, we had two producers go through their medicine cabinets. And this is just a small sample of the expired medications that they found. Let's take a look. These vitamins and the Visine that we have here, those expired in April of this year, so just a few months ago. That, I suppose, wasn't too bad.

PHILLIPS: They're not even open.

(CROSSTALK)

COHEN: That's right. They're not even open. They didn't even use them.

The eardrops and the -- the eardrops right here and the ibuprofen that we have here and this anti-fungal cream, those expired in 2002. My personal favorite is this Tylenol unopened in its original packaging that expired in September of 1998. What it was still doing in the cabinet, we don't know.

(LAUGHTER)

PHILLIPS: They're obviously sleeping all right.

COHEN: That's right. I guess they didn't need it. But, boy, are they going to be mad when they go for this. But many people have wondered, do you really need to throw these away? Of course, the drug companies are only too happy to have you throw them away, because then you need to get some more stuff. And so some people have said that perhaps the drug companies are putting these expiration dates on just so that they can get you to go out and buy some more medications.

Well, the military wondered about this. The military was sitting on this huge stockpile of expired medicines. And they were wondering, should we throw them away? Should we not?

So they actually did a test. And it's now considered one of the best tests of this whole issue. They looked at about 312 drugs and found that many were fine as long as nine years after their expiration date. And that's certainly -- that study certainly got people talking. And the American Medical Association has now asked pharmaceutical companies to study the issue to see if these expiration dates really, truly do make sense.

PHILLIPS: Ah, so a lot of them are still OK.

COHEN: A lot of them were fine.

PHILLIPS: All right, so what's the best way, then, to store them to keep their potency?

COHEN: Store them the way the military does, actually. Some people say that the military found that their drugs were doing, by and large, OK because they stored them so well.

And that is in a cool, dry place. The worst place that you want to store it, actually, is in the bathroom, which is where most of us have our medicine cabinets. Bathrooms get very humid. They also have a lot of temperature fluctuations. It's hot when you take a shower. Then it gets cold. Also, don't put it in the refrigerator, because that can also get very humid.

Do store it in a dry, cool place. And that makes a big difference when you are talking about the life of your medicine.

PHILLIPS: Oh, my gosh. We've got them both in the bathroom and the refrigerator.

All right, so, bottom line, what do you do with the expired medicine?

COHEN: Unfortunately, all the experts say that you really do have to throw them out. And I said to them, do you throw them out? Is that what you do when you come across an expired medicine? And they said: Guilty as charged. Sometimes we don't.

Because the truth is, is that, for many, many medicines, they're going to be perfectly fine past their expiration date. But others are not. And you can't really make the judgment all by yourself. Some of the things that can happen with expired medicines, uncoated tablets can disintegrate. Ibuprofen and nitroglycerine can evaporate, so they're not going to hurt you, but they're not going to be effective.

And tetracycline, which is an antibiotic, is one of the ones that can actually be toxic. There are some medicines that can actually become toxic if they're stored for too long. So the bottom line is, you just plain don't know and so you really need to throw it out.

PHILLIPS: All right, we'll be doing some housecleaning.

(CROSSTALK)

COHEN: There you go. Just go through it all. Get rid of them.

PHILLIPS: Thank you. All right.

COHEN: OK.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com