SINGAPORE: Sometimes when her body aches, Humaira Sulaiman takes the painkillers she keeps in her fridge.
Some of her medications, including for flu and coughs, are past their expiry date by as much as two years. But that is not something she checks.
“Maybe I tell myself (they work),” she said. “Most of the time … (they seem) to work.”
Another Singaporean, Oskar Song, knows he has taken expired medication. Some of his medicine boxes are yellowing, and the expiry dates have faded. But he is “not really” worried about the side effects. “I’m still alive,” he quipped.
The two of them are not the only ones with no qualms about storing medicines past the expiry dates.
In a Talking Point poll on Instagram, 33 per cent of the 708 respondents said they have taken expired medication. Another 19 per cent said they did not check expiry dates when taking their medicines.
But do expired medications still work as intended? Are they even safe to consume? Here are six things you should know the next time you have a runny nose, headache or allergy symptoms.
WATCH: Is expired medicine still safe to consume? (22:02)