On 1/30/19 4:17 AM, Robert Elz wrote:
Bigger problem, does that mean the 8th of July or the 7th of August ?
Yes, I picked "08/07/2019" for that reason. It's in US style appropriate for Puerto Rico, whereas the same date in typical German style would be "07.08.2019". If I were in charge of printing those dates, I'd use the international style "2019-08-07" to help avoid this ambiguity. The FDA regulations for drug expiration dating do not specify a date format, nor do they specify a resolution or whether UTC or local time should be used. A label can say just "Expires 2021" and apparently that's good enough. (It'd probably be pushing the envelope for a label to say "Expires in the third millennium".) See: https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?node=se21.4.211_1137
for anything that is years away from the manufaacture date is anyone (FDA included) really asking anyone to believe that one day here or there is going to make a difference, especially as environmental conditions are most likely not well controlled. The hour (or two) of time variation for summer time is never going to be relevant.
Absolutely. In practice expiration dates are a big deal for only a few drugs: tetracycline, liquid antibiotics, insulin, nitroglycerin, epi pens, thyroid, blood thinners, some eye drops, and a few others. For most drugs, you can use stuff that is several years expired and you'll be fine. (If you're not expert in a drug, of course it's best to play safe and throw out expired drugs.) For more, see: Allen M. The myth of drug expiration dates. Pro Publica. 2017-07-18 05:00 -05. https://www.propublica.org/article/the-myth-of-drug-expiration-dates