Expired medications piled up in pharmacies pose a significant threat to patient safety. This is what Dr. Joe Salloum, head of the Lebanese Pharmacists’ Syndicate, expressed, calling on the Ministries of Health and Environment to ensure that expired drugs are collected and destroyed outside Lebanon. He stressed that the risk they present is comparable to that of counterfeit medicines.
In a statement on Monday, he explained: “Expired medication is no less dangerous than counterfeit medicine. Some companies and manufacturers refuse to fully retrieve and destroy expired stock abroad, which results in pharmacies being flooded with expired drugs. Since pharmacies are prohibited from disposing of them locally due to environmental and public safety concerns, this situation turns pharmacies into a ticking time bomb that endangers patients’ lives.”
Salloum urged companies and manufacturers, especially those still reluctant, to comply with Article 53 of the Pharmacy Practice Law, which requires the retrieval of all expired medications to protect patients’ lives and their removal from Lebanon for proper disposal.
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