Stockpiling medicines is fun for a while, but if you keep stockpiling medicines, you will...

A few days ago, a netizen in Chongqing posted a message saying that hundreds of boxes of ibuprofen were found in the trash can downstairs in his building, and they were all intact and had never been opened. Why were such a large number of drugs thrown away? Netizens speculated that it might be because they had hoarded too much before and now they were thrown away because they were not needed.

Source: Weibo screenshot

In fact, with regard to the issue of drug purchase, relevant departments have repeatedly made it clear that people should not blindly stockpile drugs . Drugs themselves have a shelf life, and if the drugs are not fully used and expire, it is easy to cause waste.

For many families, it is normal to buy some common medicines on a daily basis, but it is inevitable that some medicines will be left until they expire. So, can these expired medicines still be taken? If not, how should they be dealt with? Today, the editor will tell you in detail about the things about "expired medicines"~

1

The dangers of taking expired medicines

Let me first say the conclusion: Don’t take expired medicine! There are two reasons:

One reason is that expired drugs are less effective.

Regular drugs have a corresponding shelf life, which refers to the longest time that a drug can stably exert its effectiveness under specified storage conditions. This time is determined by drug developers based on experimental tests. Therefore, the content of active ingredients in expired drugs will be reduced, and they will not be able to effectively relieve the condition, and may even cause new harm.

Source: pixabay

Second, the ingredients of expired medicines have changed, which can easily endanger health.

If expired medicines are left for too long, they will deteriorate, become damp, and moldy, causing changes in the composition and structure of the medicines and the production of harmful substances.

For example, sulfonamides and penicillins, once taken after their expiration, can easily cause allergic reactions in the human body, and in severe cases can lead to shock and death; the harmful degradation products contained in expired tetracycline are dozens of times more toxic than non-expired tetracycline, and can damage renal tubular function; expired antibiotics cannot effectively kill bacteria, but instead can cause bacterial resistance; and some drugs, such as imiprazole anti-helminth drugs, can cause potential teratogenic and mutagenic effects in the human body if taken after their expiration.

If you take these expired medicines whose quality is not controlled, it is easy to cause poisoning and harm your body. In 2018, a woman in Chongqing took expired cold medicine after catching a cold and was poisoned, almost losing her life.

Source: Baidu

In short, there are great potential risks in taking expired medicines. For the sake of our own and others' health and safety, we must avoid using expired medicines.

Please note that it is not only expired medicines that cannot be used. If you find that the medicine has not exceeded the shelf life, but the surface of the medicine shows obvious signs of deterioration (such as mold, discoloration, softening due to moisture, odor, etc.), you must not use it.

Expired medicines cannot be taken, so what should we do if the medicines at home are expired?

Source: pixabay

2

How to properly handle expired medicines

Can we just throw expired medicines into the trash? The answer is no.

The National List of Hazardous Wastes (2021 edition) clearly stipulates that "expired and invalid medicines generated during production, sales and use are classified as "hazardous wastes" and cannot be treated as general domestic waste.

If expired drugs are thrown away at will, they can easily be recycled and reused by some unscrupulous vendors and medical institutions. By changing the outer packaging, tampering with the drug batch number and other means, these expired drugs can be put back on the market, posing a major hidden danger.

Source: pixabay

Can expired medicines be flushed down the toilet or into the sewer, so that they can be eaten in disguise? The answer is no.

Expired medicines contain chemical components that enter the city water system through toilets and sewers and flow into rivers, lakes and seas. Under the infiltration and diffusion of rainwater and groundwater, they can easily cause environmental pollution of water bodies, soil, etc., and ultimately affect our human health.

Source: pixabay

What is the correct way to dispose of expired drugs? At present, the centralized disposal of a large number of expired drugs requires sending them to nearby special drug recycling points, where they will be uniformly disposed of harmlessly by dedicated personnel. According to news reports, at the beginning of this year, Jiang'an District of Wuhan City has set up expired drug recycling boxes in many communities to facilitate the unified disposal of expired drugs in the future.

Source: Hubei Daily

However, if you cannot find a drug recycling station near your home and you need to dispose of expired drugs, you can also do this: For tablets, pills and capsules, tear up the packaging box, wrap it in paper, and throw it at a hazardous waste disposal point; for liquid medicines such as oral solution and eye drops, you can squeeze the liquid out and mix it with domestic waste, and throw it at a hazardous waste disposal point; for sprays and other medicines, you can completely empty the medicine in a place with good air circulation and then discard it.

Proper disposal of expired drugs is crucial to our personal health and urban environment. According to CCTV News, various regions will actively establish and improve drug recycling channels in the future, making it more convenient for us to deal with expired drugs.

Source: pixabay

The use of medicines is not a trivial matter. As an ordinary resident, we should establish the awareness of rational drug purchase and reasonable use, avoid blindly following the trend of hoarding medicines. At the same time, we should also pay attention to the expiration date of the medicines, store them strictly according to the storage conditions on the instructions, observe the properties of the medicines before use, and do a good job of recycling expired medicines.

Finally, I wish you all good health in the new year, and good health!