Originally Posted by mrsD

Samples are always either short dated, or may be mishandled.

If the pen was exposed to high heat in the trunk of the sales rep's car for hours and hours, it would be degraded.

Those reps get boxes of samples and store them in their cars, and travel around. I've seen them countless times getting them out of a hot trunk and lugging them into the clinic or office!

Not surprised. In fact long ago when tetracycline was new and popular, its samples were stored for long periods of time (this is before exp dates were put on drugs---yes there was time this was true) and doctors used the old samples on themselves and family members and employees and patients and old tetracycline cause kidney damage--Fanconi's syndrome. When traced back to outdated drug, it was an incentive to have exp dates put on drugs from then on:


from http://medical-dictionary.thefreedic...i%27s+syndrome