Darvocet Banned after 30 Years

Although it has been banned in the United Kingdom for five years and the European Union for one, the United States have only recently moved to ban the painkillers Darvon and Darvocet, both propoxyphene products which have been shown to cause heart problems and even death in some patients. Darvocet, which contains both propoxyphene and acetaminophen, is used to control mild to moderate pain and sometimes fever, while Darvon – which is simply propoxyphene – is used only for pain relief.
Although the effect of the drug is not as strong as that of some other prescription painkillers, studies have shown that the risks to patients taking propoxyphene products is greater than that of those who are taking some varieties of stronger prescription painkillers. Studies have observed that people who are taking propoxyphene products have an increased risk of Darvocet heart arrhythmia, even if they are otherwise healthy. In addition, there have been a disproportionate number of deaths recorded in people who have been found to have propoxyphene in their system. Due to these possible complications during treatment for an ailment, an advisory panel for the Food and Drug Administration voted in January of 2009 to ban the drug; however, the ban was not announced publicly until November 2010.
Debate over the safety of these drugs has been going on for over 30 years, with the consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen first petitioning the Food and Drug Administration for a ban of the drug in 1978 and then again in 2006. The European Union’s ban on propoxyphene products, ironically enough, stemmed from a study conducted in the United States that demonstrated the disproportionate number of Darvocet deaths that had occurred.
More recent studies, however, have made the argument against using these products more compelling by demonstrating the risk to consumers – individuals who had taken the drugs were seen to suffer from electrical changes in the heart such as arrhythmia and there were more drug-related deaths in which propoxyphene was found in the bloodstream than evidence of other, more powerful painkillers.
Although it is only about half as potent as codeine, it has the potential to be habit-forming and therefore dangerous to some consumers. The manufacturers of these products have agreed to comply with the recommendation of the Food and Drug Administration that the product be banned.