FDA Panel Votes to Eliminate Vicodin and Percocet

I don't think they will remove them. I think they will black box them.

I think I am getting more polarized against this.

I am sure there are other causes that result in more deaths per year that could be addressed for the same money. On the other hand, people can always be instructed to take acetaminophen in conjunction with their narcotic.

I'm sure the added acetaminophen acts synergistically with hydro or oxycodone. However, I would have to guess that removing it from the mixture won't have any drastic action towards pain control. People need to be better educated when it comes to medicine, especially OTC.

I would just like to say, as a chronic pain sufferer, I'm not sure how people don't know about the added tyleonl, the pharmacists preach to me every month, and I've been on some type of med for approx 10yrs. I do think even the smaller added dose of acetaminophen boosts the oxycodone or hydrocodone. I think it would be a mistake to take it off the market all together, just better education for the public, and people need to take some
responsibility for their own health, read labels.

If you have a patient who is in chronic pain, or is on hospice, dening them the relief of pain is inhuman in my opinion. If any drug is used as it is priscribed then i see know reason why they should be discontinued. The purpose of those drugs is to help the patients, the patients are the priority in my opinion. To just let someone who is dying, or has a chronic issues, who needs the medication to help them have a more fullfilling life, it is worth it. I have experienced many patients who suffer if the do not have something to relieve there pain, it is heart breaking and to watch someone go through pain and not being able to do anything to help them because of the continious issues of against pain managment is horrible. I am all for using pain managment to keep my patients comfortable.

That's what I was going to say - you can just give the Oxycodone seperately to the tylenol.

Why don't we just eliminate stupid people who don't heed the warnings on the bottles of OTCs and be done with it?

That's what we're already doing to the tune of 56,000.

As an Oncology nurse and the use of these painkillers by the patients makes me frantic. Most of the patients are elderly and don't realize how dangerous acetaminophen is. People think that Tylenol is a benign drug when in fact it is more dangerous than plain old aspirin, unless you are on blood thinners. I am happy to see that the FDA is starting to get their act otgether and eliminating some of these overused drugs. Iam all for eliminating Vicodin and Percocet.

I think this is going a bit overboard at this time, start by lowering recommended dosage and do more educating to the public. Maybe the docs could spend a little more time with patients and explain the risks, the docs run in and then right back out doing visits. It just seems like that would be a better palce to start.