Eight out of ten expired drugs remain 90% effective, study finds

The consumer association has announced that it will contact the National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products.

Eight out of ten expired drugs remain 90% effective, according to a study by UFC-Que Choisir, published on Thursday, September 19, which franceinfo was able to consult. The consumer association denounces “a real environmental, economic and health waste”. She announced that she would contact the National Agency for the Safety of Medicines and Health Products (ANSM) to ask it to implement a set of measures to limit the waste of medicines. The Agency told franceinfo that it has already started discussions with manufacturers to extend the official shelf life of their medicines.

For its study, UFC-Que Choisir had 20 paracetamol tablets, capsules or sachets and 10 ibuprofen tablets, whose expiry date had passed, analyzed. The results of these tests show that “only three samples from each group contain less than 90% of the displayed quantity of active ingredient”, “for example, less than 900 mg of paracetamol for a 1g Doliprane”The worst results obtained are 84% for paracetamol (deadline 2018) and 82% for ibuprofen (deadline 2022). “For most specialties, the active ingredient content must be between 95% and 105% throughout the entire shelf life, at least in Europe”explains the association, specifying that in the United States “usually the threshold is 90%”.

UFC-Que Choisir, for example, tested Dafalgan (paracetamol) tablets that had expired six years ago, left in the pocket of a hiking bag, which withstood a heatwave, a big storm, numerous downpours, temperatures around 4 or 5°C, then years in a damp cellar. More than six years after their expiration date, they still contained 95% paracetamol. Similarly, Efferalgan (paracetamol) tablets that had expired nearly 32 years ago, kept in the cupboard of a centenarian, still contained 100% of the active substance.

“These findings are particularly worrying since throwing away effective drugs when they are supposedly expired has major impacts,” says UFC-Que Choisir. These consequences are first and foremost economic, because this phenomenon generates “faster renewal of medications which has a cost for the hospital system, health insurance and patients”according to the association. They are also environmental, because unused medicines generate excess waste. “useless”, and health, because this can lead to a shortage or supply tensions for certain medicines.

The association is wondering “on the fact that the ANSM takes a much more restrictive view than the American authorities to determine whether or not a drug retains its therapeutic virtues”Another question raised by the study is that of the autonomy of pharmaceutical laboratories which can themselves set the expiry dates of their drugs. “There is no obligation for them to extend this date, even if they could perfectly guarantee the effectiveness of the drugs beyond that date.“, notes UFC-Que Choisir, which wonders whether, from the point of view of these companies, “economic criteria take precedence over scientific criteria”.

Methodology**
In June 2024, UFC-Que Choisir had a specialized laboratory measure the quantity of active substances present in 30 boxes of paracetamol or ibuprofen tablets, capsules or sachets that, according to the manufacturers, had expired. In detail, 20 paracetamol tablets, capsules or sachets (expired between 1992 and 2023) and 10 ibuprofen tablets (expired between 2015 and March 2024) were analyzed.