DeBlog: Do Medication Expiration Dates Mean Anything?
MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Take a look in your medicine cabinet. What's the oldest thing in there? JP Nagan just threw out Aspirin from 2004. Shelli told me she had medication from 1995.
Greg Thayer from Maple Grove wrote: "All of our medicine has an expiration date listed - Mary insists that I throw expired medicine but is it really bad? What is the purpose of the expiration dates on my Advil? I would like to know if we should use our expired medicine or toss it?"
We wondered if that Aspirin and Advil really goes bad, or if it's just a technique for the drug companies to get us to toss the old medications so we buy new ones. What really causes a medication to go bad?
Awhile ago, we did a Good Question where we learned that sunscreen can work at 50 percent of its full power if it's expired. Is the same true with medication? We'll tell you Thursday night at 10.
In the meantime, e-mail me a picture of your expired drugs from your medicine cabinet. We'll use it in the story at 10!
