ReviewInternational journal of environmental research and public health2020
Expired Medication: Societal, Regulatory and Ethical Aspects of a Wasted Opportunity.
Review in International journal of environmental research and public health, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 46 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
46 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 127 citations in OpenAlex.
- Stability and Efficacy of Medicines Beyond Their Expiration Dates: A Systematic Review.Therapeutic innovation & regulatory science · 2026Pooled it
- Facilitators for establishing a home-based medicine reverse logistic system in low- and middle-income countries - a scoping review.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2025Pooled it
- Interventions to address improper disposal practices of unused and expired household medications: A systematic review.Public health in practice (Oxford, England) · 2026Review
- A cross-sectional study of household disposal of unused and expired pharmaceuticals in western China.BMC public health · 2026Observational
- Unsafe disposal of unused and expired medicines in Indonesia: nationwide evidence on public awareness and disposal practices across urban-rural and island disparities.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices of the Mexican Population Regarding the Disposal of Medications: A Cross-Sectional Study.Epidemiologia (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Addressing the disposal of unused and expired medications in Saudi households: Time to bridge the regulatory gaps.PloS one · 2026Article
- Greening the curriculum: challenges in bringing environmental sustainability to pharmaceutical education.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Review
- Views, Barriers and Facilitators of Policymakers, Pharmacists and Community Health Representative in Managing Unused Medicine in a Socioeconomically Diverse District in Indonesia.F1000Research · 2026Article
- Review
- Prevalence and determinants of unused medicines among households in Ethiopia: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Exploratory research in clinical and social pharmacy · 2025Article
- Utilization of expired sulphadimidine in the fabrication of a metal free graphitic carbon nitride to photodegrade doxycycline in water: an experimental and statistical study.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Bibliometric Analysis and Review of Global Academic Research on Drug Take-Back Programs.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Isoconversional Kinetic Analysis and ANN-Based Prediction of Metformin Pyrolysis for Sustainable Waste Management.ACS omega · 2025Article
- Medication waste and disposal behaviors among Iranian households: A Cross-sectional study.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Patients' insights into unused medications during the COVID-19 outbreak: A qualitative study.Exploratory research in clinical and social pharmacy · 2024Article
- Prevalence of unused medications and determinants among the general public in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.BMC public health · 2024Article
- Future Healthcare Workers and Ecopharmacovigilance: Where Do We Stand?Pharmacy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Patients' knowledge, attitude, and practices toward unused medications in Qatar: A cross-sectional survey.Heliyon · 2024Article
- Do pharmacists counsel customers on the disposal of unused or expired household medications? A national survey among 1,596 pharmacists in Indonesia.Saudi pharmaceutical journal : SPJ : the official publication of the Saudi Pharmaceutical Society · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
A massive volume of expired medications amasses annually around the world because of pharmaceutical overprescription, combined with overproduction. The accumulation of pharmaceutical waste imposes ecological, economic and social/ethical burdens. Managing this presumed "waste" has developed into a global challenge due to the absence of specific regulations, unreasonable behavior of the patients, and an improper understanding of the concept of "expired medications" in general. This paper summaries, first, the recent literature reporting practices related to the disposal of unused medications. In this context, 48 papers from 34 countries with a total of 33,832 participants point towards a significant lack of public awareness regarding the appropriate disposal of such biologically potent chemicals. These findings are corroborated by a local survey on the disposal practices of unused medicines among pharmacy students at Saarland University. The regulatory aspects surrounding this topic, often based on the official guidelines for the disposal of expired medications and local waste management strategies, are then discussed in light of these findings. Finally, a closer inspection of the epistemic values of expired medications and different strategies for managing expired medications have been reviewed.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.