FDA Panel Votes to Eliminate Vicodin and Percocet

Darvocet is on the Beer's List and is a horrible drug. It SHOULD be taken off the market. It's not very effective and has many metabolites which are harmful to elders.
It is a pretty pink color though.

Digoxin, just about all the benzodiazepines, most antihistimines, and many anti-inflammatories are on the Beer's list too but many of them are used often. Every drug has potential side effects. It's up to clinicians and patients to weight the relative risks with the relative benefits.

I like propoxyphene for me (the old darvon without tylenol). I used it when I had an injury. Ultram didn't cut it. Lortab constipated me. The darvon relieved my pain without any noticible side effects and without giving me a buzz that lots of people seek. Of course, I'm not elderly yet :-) It just seems that there aren't many options for mid level pain relief. I hate to see valid options reduced or eliminated unnecessarily. A black box warning regarding elders could certainly be another option that could have a significant effect on the number of prescriptions written.

The reason darvocet in particular is a crappy drug is because research shows that there is no pain relief above placebo (propoxyphene-only) or above the acetaminophen in it (darvocet), yet it contains many of the typical opioid side effects and risks.

Well, it works for me when I have a root canal or horrid perforated eardrum & infection.

No one denies the potency of placebo.

We don't have to relearn to make the wheel. In the UK it was banned. Propoxyphene releated deaths dropped of course. There was a cooresponding increase in deaths with other opiods. In the journal Rheumatology, research by Ottenwald and Walker showed that around half of the patients who had been on propoxyphene were unable to find a suitable alternative. As for effectiveness, there are 25 million prescriptions written annually for propoxyphene products. The experience of the people taking it who feel like it works for them should be considered as well as the research. I would be in that category that would have trouble finding an alternative. Most of them are entirely too sedating for me. It's not a strong agent for pain relief but for many people it works. In the 50+ years it has been around, there have been 1400 related deaths (with suicide with multiple agents in 93% of the cases). So, if we assume that propoxyphene is the responsible agent in every one of the cases, there is a 0.0001% chance of mortality. That's better than many approved drugs. The only things we can truly know are what we experience. Everything else is hearsay. Research is hearsay we have reason to trust but if it contradicts direct experience, where do you put your trust? In people you don't know, who have their own agendas that we don't find out about most of the time? My direct experience does tell me that elderly people don't really do that great with it. I don't think it is a perfect drug but tell me about one drug that is.

I also don't think that Lortab and Percocet should be taken off the market (getting back to the thread). We do need more, better, less addictive, less likely to create harm, pain relievers. When those come out and people can afford them, the use of more harmful pain relievers will be reduced by substitution.