A survey conducted on behalf of over the counter medicine range Care,
has found that an alarming two-thirds of all adults could possess and
use medication that has long passed its date of expiration.
The worrying statistic was determined after 5,000 adults were
quizzed. The results indicated that a quarter of British adults have
willingly ingested out of date medicine, clearly unaware of the health
risks this could pose to them. A further 7% were under the assumption
that medicines do not have a shelf life. More results from the study
show that approximately two-fifths of adults do not bother to look at
the important patient information leaflets provided with medications,
and 12% admitted that they simply just guess what the right dose is that
they should take.
The figure of 62% of adults having medicine out of date, works out at
roughly 73 million out of date products just in the UK alone. Health
authorities may now need to act and devise a scheme to help encourage
people to regularly check the medicines they have sitting in their
cabinets at home, see if they are in date, and if not – then dispose of
them in a safe manner.
A London based GP, Dr Sarah Jarvis, says, “It is extremely worrying
to hear so many of us are taking out of date medicines. Just like food
that goes off, medicines past their expiry date can deteriorate and make
you ill. You need to be particularly careful with your eyes, nose or a
wound as these areas are especially prone to letting in bacteria.”
Dr Jarvis’ comments were supported by English Pharmacy Board member
Sid Dajani who commented, “People are risking their lives by not taking
the use by dates on their medicines seriously. The danger is what they
don’t do for you – anti-seizure drugs resulting in fits, people with
asthma suffocating because their blue inhaler doesn’t work or pregnancy
tests showing a false negative because the active HCG reagent is too
old. I urge everybody to check the use by date before taking medication,
and to return out of date medicines to their local pharmacy where
they’ll be disposed of safely.”
Medical Specialists Pharmacy advise that you never simply place
unused or expired medicines into the rubbish bin or flush them down the
toilet. For instance, there is a big risk that babies and children will
get the medicine from the bin and ingest them. Also, medication can
eventually end up contaminating local drinking water systems after being
flushed down the toilet or be hazardous to the environment. You should
take unwanted or expired medicines to a pharmacy, who can dispose of
them safely.
In regards to Medical Specialists Pharmacy, you do not ever need to
worry about out of date products. We have a strict and rigorous system
in place that ensures all of our prescription medications such as Viagra, Cialis, Propecia, Dianette, etc. are well in-date, and this applies to our chemist shop items too such as condoms and hair loss products such as Alpecin shampoo.
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