The Crocin Cold and Flu  medicine bottle always seems to be dusty, worn out, and hidden under a pile of bathroom products when you suddenly catch a cold. It is used to relieve symptoms like fever, minor aches, cough, runny nose, and sneezing, helping you rest and recover, especially at night.

Advertisment

Feeling exhausted and dealing with a runny nose, you glance at the label and realize the medicine expired six months ago. In that moment, it's natural to wonder—does the expiration date really matter?

Gina Bellottie, a pharmacology professor at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, advises against taking medications after they expire. However, she notes that the importance of expiration dates isn’t a simple yes-or-no answer, as mentioned in an online Popular Science report.

The Food and Drug Administration (9) requires drug companies to include an expiration date on all prescription and over-the-counter medicines.

Advertisment

The expiration date is set after extensive testing is done before the medicine is sold.

Scientists keep the medicine at the right temperature, either at room temperature or in the fridge, and test it over time to see if it stays effective or starts to break down.

Companies don’t test medicines indefinitely. If a drug stays effective for the entire testing period—usually six months to two years—they set that as the expiration date and stop testing.

Advertisment

This means the expiration date is just the last date the company tested and has proof the medicine still works.
After that date, the company can’t promise the medicine will still be effective," says Bellottie. Without more testing, there's no way to know if it will work the same way.

Recent findings suggest that some medicines might still be effective after they expire. In 2017, ProPublica investigated drug expiration dates and found that many expired medications, even years later, still worked as intended.

The investigation revealed that every year, expensive medicines worth thousands of dollars are thrown away, even though tests show many of them still work.

Unless drug companies start testing medicines for longer, which isn’t likely to happen soon, the way we use and dispose of medications will remain the same.

Bellottie explains that her advice to patients remains the same: Never take expired medicine without first asking a pharmacist if it’s still safe to use.

Many factors, like how a medicine is stored or how long it has been open, can affect its safety and effectiveness, says Bellottie.

Some medicines might still be safe to use years later, but without more testing, it's hard to know which ones are still effective.

If you have no choice but to take an expired medicine, Bellottie warns that you should never use it for a serious or life-threatening condition.

For some medicines, the worst that could happen is that they might not work as well, says Bellottie.

If you have a headache, it might not be a big problem. But if it's a serious emergency, the wrong medicine or one that doesn’t work properly could be dangerous.

She also mentions that old medicines, especially liquids or ones that have been opened, can get contaminated over time.

If you're unsure, she suggests gathering all the medicines from your cabinet, putting them in a bag, and taking them to the nearest pharmacy. The pharmacist can help you figure out which medicines are safe to keep using and which ones aren’t. They can also warn you about any side effects or drug interactions.