In his lab, Gerona ran tests on the decades-old drugs, including some now defunct brands such as the diet pills Obocell (once pitched to doctors with a portly figurine called "Mr. What if the system is destroying drugs that are technically "expired" but could still be safely used? Experts estimate such squandering eats up about $765 billion a year - as much as a quarter of all the country's health care spending. We've documented how hospitals often discard pricey new supplies, how nursing homes trash valuable medications after patients die or move out, and how drug companies create expensive combinations of cheap drugs. One answer, broadly, is waste - some of it buried in practices that the medical establishment and the rest of us take for granted. health care system is the most expensive in the world. ProPublica has been researching why the U.S. But the dates don't necessarily mean they're ineffective immediately after they "expire" - just that there's no incentive for drugmakers to study whether they could still be usable. The dates on drug labels are simply the point up to which the Food and Drug Administration and pharmaceutical companies guarantee their effectiveness, typically at two or three years. Gerona, a pharmacist and Cantrell, a toxicologist, knew that the term "expiration date" was a misnomer. Pharmacies across the country in major medical centers and in neighborhood strip malls routinely toss out tons of scarce and potentially valuable prescription drugs when they hit their expiration dates. The age of the drugs might have been bizarre, but the question the researchers wanted to answer wasn't. "Who gets the chance of analyzing drugs that have been in storage for more than 30 years?"
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