[tz] DST ends 2040 in Oracle database

[Paul Eggert]

On 1/30/19 4:17 AM, Robert Elz wrote:
> Bigger problem, does that mean the 8th of July or the 7th of August ?

Yes, I picked "08/07/2019" for that reason. It's in US style appropriate 
for Puerto Rico, whereas the same date in typical German style would be 
"07.08.2019". If I were in charge of printing those dates, I'd use the 
international style "2019-08-07" to help avoid this ambiguity.

The FDA regulations for drug expiration dating do not specify a date 
format, nor do they specify a resolution or whether UTC or local time 
should be used. A label can say just "Expires 2021" and apparently 
that's good enough. (It'd probably be pushing the envelope for a label 
to say "Expires in the third millennium".) See:

https://www.ecfr.gov/cgi-bin/text-idx?node=se21.4.211_1137


> for anything
> that is years away from the manufaacture date is anyone (FDA
> included) really asking anyone to believe that one day here or there
> is going to make a difference, especially as environmental conditions
> are most likely not well controlled.   The hour (or two) of time variation
> for summer time is never going to be relevant.

Absolutely. In practice expiration dates are a big deal for only a few 
drugs: tetracycline, liquid antibiotics, insulin, nitroglycerin, epi 
pens, thyroid, blood thinners, some eye drops, and a few others. For 
most drugs, you can use stuff that is several years expired and you'll 
be fine. (If you're not expert in a drug, of course it's best to play 
safe and throw out expired drugs.) For more, see:

Allen M. The myth of drug expiration dates. Pro Publica. 2017-07-18 
05:00 -05. 
https://www.propublica.org/article/the-myth-of-drug-expiration-dates