Darvon Death: The Worst of the Side Effects

Although less publicized and formerly less prescribed than Darvocet, the similar drug Darvon is also included in the Food and Drug Administration’s recall of propoxyphene products. The only difference between the two is that Darvocet contains acetaminophen, which is the active ingredient and fever reducer in Tylenol, whereas Darvon is pure propoxyphene. Both mild painkillers put patients at risk for the same set of severe side effects.
Darvon was widely prescribed to the American public to treat mild to moderate pain before it was banned by the Food and Drug Administration in 2010, after more than 30 years of consumer advocacy groups petitioning for its ban. The FDA decided that the risks involved in taking the drug far outweighed the painkilling benefits it offered. Although propoxyphene products were banned in the United Kingdom in 2005 and in Europe in 2009, the United States decided to wait until even more lives were put on the line before taking steps to ban the drug – it is estimated that just since the United Kingdom propoxyphene ban, between 1,000 and 2,000 American propoxyphene patients have died as a direct result of taking the drug, deaths that simply did not need to happen.
The FDA ban of propoxyphene came after a study showed that, even at standard therapeutic doses of the drug, accidental death was a serious risk – even just one or two pills can alter the electrical rhythm of the heart, leading to side effects that can be fatal such as heart attack or arrhythmia. Darvon was also known as an insufficiently effective painkiller with a serious risk of drug addiction or dependency attacked to it. Although thankfully the risk of developing a Darvon side effect is reduced as soon as the drug leaves the system, millions of people have already been negatively affected by the drug.