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> But neither Cantrell nor Dr. Cathleen Clancy, associate medical director of National Capital Poison Center, a nonprofit organization affiliated with the Georg

> But neither Cantrell nor Dr. Cathleen Clancy, associate medical director of National Capital Poison Center, a nonprofit organization affiliated with the George Washington University Medical Center, had heard of anyone being harmed by any expired drugs. Cantrell says there has been no recorded instance of such harm in medical literature. I am more than a little surprised by this. Fanconi syndrome, a kidney disease that can cause bone damage [1], has been repeatedly found in the medical literature to be caused by taking expired pills of the antibiotic tetracycline. [2] That these people completely failed to remember these cases is distressing at best. (I heard an interview with the author of this story on NPR Morning Edition today, and also scanned this story webpage. The only mention of tetracycline was by a web commenter on the story.) [1] https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/000333.htm https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/000333.htm [2] https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=tetracycline+fanconi+syndrome https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=tetracycline+fanc...

Herodotus38 9y ago
I was going to post a similar reply. However, outside of tetracycline, there have never been reported adverse effects from expired drugs. Furthermore, there were only three cases of expired tetracycline related Fanconi Syndrome and that preparation responsible is no longer made. Of course, if it's old... Otherwise I agree I'm surprised by the reporting ignoring this because this is a classic board question in internal medicine. Source: http://www.mdedge.com/internalmedicinenews/article/113748/should-i-throw-out-my-expired-medications http://www.mdedge.com/internalmedicinenews/article/113748/sh... Edit: Apologies that the above link has a paywall. When I accessed it via google it worked once, then shot up a paywall. If it doesn't work at all I'll remove it.

Herodotus38 9y ago

I was going to post a similar reply. However, outside of tetracycline, there have never been reported adverse effects from expired drugs. Furthermore, there were only three cases of expired tetracycline related Fanconi Syndrome and that preparation responsible is no longer made. Of course, if it's old... Otherwise I agree I'm surprised by the reporting ignoring this because this is a classic board question in internal medicine. Source: http://www.mdedge.com/internalmedicinenews/article/113748/should-i-throw-out-my-expired-medications http://www.mdedge.com/internalmedicinenews/article/113748/sh... Edit: Apologies that the above link has a paywall. When I accessed it via google it worked once, then shot up a paywall. If it doesn't work at all I'll remove it.