My daughter 8Y taken one year-expired Strattera 40 mg for 18 days. What could be long term adverse effects?

Question

My daughter age 8, weighing 37 Kg is under treatment for ADHD for last 4 years. She has been experimented (by pysciatrists) with Prozac, Risperdal, Ritalin, Haloperidol (Serenace) etc etc. She is now on Strattera 40 mg (Atomoxetine Hydrochloride). She has consumed one year-expired Strattra for 18 days issued by a Pharmacy in Canberra, Australia. The medicine went unnoticed untilll she started complaining of sever radiating pain on right side of the brain (pain travelling down towards temple, eye & back neck) and electric pulse travelling through her limbs, seeing ocassionally white spots, discordination in her movements and deterioration of her short-term memory , increasingly deteriorated academic performance etc. Long list of earlier medication has already complicated her condition. I intend pursuing the legal discourse. Can any experienced chemist/ psychiatrist/ para-legal professional etc put me wise on the long term adverse impact of taking expired-medicine such as Straterra?

Answer 1

Nothing will happen. The expiration dates for pharmaceuticals in North America is a lot earlier than medicine really expires. The only real problem you might discover is the medicine isn't as effective, but it doesn't go "bad."

Answer 2

As far as I know it can not realistically cause death, without taking 10s of thousands of recreational doses simultaneously, making it practically harmless in terms of death. LSD does have profound mental effects though, I assume these are why it is illegal. It can cause confusion, and is quite dangerous when taken in silly situations, because the user doesn't necessarily understand what is going on. If one has a bad experience it can also trigger mental illnesses. It doesn't kill brain cells. It doesn't cause chromosome damage. It is never rat poison / mixed with rat poison. Basically it is illegal because society doesn't trust people to be able to use hallucinogens responsibly and it is reinforced by endless propaganda about how dangerous it is. It has little to no known long term effects on the brain, but sometimes heavy users of LSD find residual LSD effects after they stop taking LSD. For some reason this only happens with LSD and not other hallucinogens.

Answer 3

The expiration date on the packaging is normally the date the company stopped testing the drug. No one knows really the adverse effects of taking an expired drug because it is not tested. In theory, the drug might still be working, not working, or toxic. It depends on the drug. I don't know right off hand how that drug degrades. If you know how the drug degrades, you might know if it is benign or toxic.
However, a pharmacy should not be dispensing an expired drug. That can lead to a citation, and if often enough, loose your license. That is a big no-no, and someone has not been checking their shelves for expired drugs.