My village recycling centre has a corner for medicine

Hahaha this!!

I can't buy a couple of parecetemol without talking to the pharmacist .. But I can buy all manner of homeopathy, anti-aging wonder creams, herbal sprays for sore muscles .. Everything with a picture of a flower on it is fair game.

When Pharma comes up with a new drug and they need to get approval to sell it, they are required to study how long it will remain as effective as the day it was produced. This isn’t an estimate, or a projection, or a guess. It needs to be tested, for example, for two years to get a two year “sell by” date.

Problem is, that once they get their approval they are not required to continue to test until the point that effectiveness begins to be lost.

They have NO IDEA how long it stays effective. And they have zero incentive to test further.