The Myth of Drug Expiration Dates • Hacker News Board

Re: The Myth of Drug Expiration Dates

#271

Post by dfinlen » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 11:55 PM UTC

Drug Expiration Date Excuses

FDA requires testing. testing expensive... really ... how hard would it be to grab 50 tablets per drug for each environment (high UV, extreme humidity etc..) let them sit and once a year grab a pill and run chem analysis. Sounds like it could pretty much be automated, except for maybe the maintenance of the environments. Maybe 500k to 1m per year with the work out sourced with various statistical validations. (Yes I realize this is hard part, damn humans) Take all the generic tablets and voila..

Drugs are cheap to produce

Really though, medicine doesn't cost much. It costs because society deemed it so. As it's been explained above/below, but, paying for research, marketing and regulations is probably 90% of the cost.

The hard question is

A more interesting question is how much can we afford to help others when they are sick? If the difference between health is as trivial as getting the right medicine I know I'd feel guilty if I didn't do something. This is especially true for chronic disease, as the cost benefit is tilted.

Re: The Myth of Drug Expiration Dates

#272

Post by dfinlen » Fri, Jul 21, 2017, 11:55 PM UTC

Drug Expiration Date excuses. FDA requires testing. testing expensive... really ... how hard would it be to grab 50 tablets per drug for each environment (high UV, extreme humidity etc..) let them sit and once a year grab a pill and run chem analysis. Sounds like it could pretty much be automated, except for maybe the maintenance of the environments. Maybe 500k to 1m per year with the work out sourced and gov't providing oversight. Take all the generic tablets and voila..

Drugs are cheap to produce. Really though, medicine doesn't cost much. It costs because society deemed it so. As it's been explained above/below, but, paying for research, marketing and regulations is probably 90% of the cost.

The hard question is. A more interesting question is how much can we afford to help others when they are sick? If the difference between health is as trivial as getting the right medicine I know I'd feel guilty if I didn't do something. This is especially true for chronic disease, as the cost benefit is tilted.

Re: The Myth of Drug Expiration Dates

#273

Post by sevenfive » Sat, Jul 22, 2017, 8:48 PM UTC

civilitty wrote: post #270

sevenfive wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just throwing around a lot of irrelevant details to obscure the fact that your original statement violates the dimensional analysis smell test -- I could make a shitty prodrug of LSD where the threshold dose is 1g instead of 50ug, but you wouldn't expect the 1g version to be less sensitive to a 25% change because it's "less potent." If you wanted to give examples of a drug where a 25% change is a big concern…

I tried explaining why you are wrong but I give up. You are incapable of accepting basic facts about biological systems and neuroscience that have been known for many decades, no matter how hard I try to explain it to you. Your "dimensional analysis smell test" is entirely idiotic in the face of those basic facts as accepted by the entire medical and biological research fields. Please don't talk about pharmacology. P…

This is what you said:

> There are a few compounds (like fentanyl or LSD) where the dosages are so small and the compound so potent that 10-25% makes a difference but for the majority, precision isn't that critical.

As in, typical dosages for fent or LSD are on the order of micrograms, so we expect them to be sensitive to a 25% change, for other drugs where a typical dose is measured in mg or grams, 25% is less likely to be a big deal, etc. This is the only way to interpret what you wrote, and it doesn't make sense. No such trend exists. None of the "basic facts" which you "explained" above (which I already knew) go anywhere near supporting this assertion.

Put another way, if you know the [A]50 you know one point on the dose-response curve, but in general that tells you nothing about the slope or shape of the curve near that point.

Judging from your comment history, you are not an actual doctor or biomed researcher, just a programmer in that industry. Which makes your teeth-gnashing about what an authority you are a tad less persuasive.

Re: The Myth of Drug Expiration Dates

#274

Post by TheKarateKid » Tue, Jul 25, 2017, 9:57 PM UTC

Kalium wrote: post #262

TheKarateKid wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If scientists are able to calculate the longevity of chemicals, food, and other products without having to wait the actual time period, I don't see how or why pharmaceutical drugs would be any different. It's very likely it is not favorable to companies to look into this, just as it was revealed that the EpiPen expiration date was not really true.

You're absolutely right! Those calculations can be done without actual testing. The only wrinkle is that doing so comes with the risk of failing to foresee something or otherwise being wrong. So there are some error bars involved. What kind of error rate are you willing to accept in models of pharmaceutical shelf stability? Bearing in mind that errors potentially translate into deaths, probably disproportionately of…

I'm not sure how it would be any different than existing expiration dates for OTC medicines, food, dairy, etc. In the case of medication, it is most likely to become less effective over time rather than toxic.

Re: The Myth of Drug Expiration Dates

#275

Post by TheKarateKid » Tue, Jul 25, 2017, 9:58 PM UTC

larelogio wrote: post #260

TheKarateKid wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If scientists are able to calculate the longevity of chemicals, food, and other products without having to wait the actual time period, I don't see how or why pharmaceutical drugs would be any different. It's very likely it is not favorable to companies to look into this, just as it was revealed that the EpiPen expiration date was not really true.

Are they? "able to calculate the longevity of chemicals, food, and other products without having to wait the actual time period"

I doubt that food companies let their canned beans sit for 3 years to figure out if that August 2020 expiration date holds true.