FDA Panel Votes to Eliminate Vicodin and Percocet

FDA Panel Recommends Smaller Doses of Painkillers
"Government experts say prescription drugs like Vicodin and Percocet that combine a popular painkiller with stronger narcotics should be eliminated because of their role in deadly overdoses. A Food and Drug Administration panel on Tuesday voted 20-17 that prescription drugs that combine acetaminophen with other painkilling ingredients should be pulled off the market."

Seriously? So what narcotics will be available for treating moderate to severe pain.....meaning opiates that will actually work and that an MD will actually prescribe? Many people cannot tolerate Morphine. Demerol (labeled the "dirty drug") is practically banned in the hospital were I work, most of the MDs that I know are terrified of prescribing Oxycontin.

People with chronic pain taking Vicodin or Percocet are going to be in a world of hurt if these meds are indeed eliminated. People with chronic pain have a hard enough time getting their pain treated properly as it is! I know some people say that MDs give out Narcotics like "candy", but I can tell you that in the years that I have been a Nurse, I have never met one MD that wrote a prescription Opiates just because a patient asked for it.

I guess using compound formulas would be an option?

What are your thoughts on this?

ANYONE ELSE SEE THIS? The FDA just suggested a ban on Vicodin, percocet, and changing the max dose of tylenol to 650mg....all due to acetomephine(you know tylenol)...my surgical patients can't hack just 650mg of tylenol after those procedures...or they're going to want morphine, dilaudid, PCAs, or something stronger....all due to the 400 deaths yearly due to overdoses....If they want to ban it in pharmacies and OTCs ok...but hospitals need to be able to care for people..and we are educated enough to determine what drug a patient needs based on pain...geez, big brother indeed!

ITA...our MD and NP both have no problems calculating the max dose of tylenol along with any pain meds that contain them. I really don't think a ban is needed. What is needed is more education. Neither the doctor or the pharmacist told my husband that there was 500mg of tylenol in his vicodin. Imagine how shocked I was to find out he was taking 1000mg of tylenol along with 1 vicodin. Sheesh!

They are talking about things available to the community. I doubt it will have any restriction on your ability to manage pain in the acute hospital setting. How is that "Big Brother"? The purpose of the FDA is to protect the public (sometimes from themselves).

I think the argument is that the education has continued to fail. I don't know that whipping things off the market is the answer.

I am always surprised that people will just pump pills into their mouths without reading what is in them. My sister did this after surgery. Luckily she mentioned it too me.

In Britain they changed the amount of paracetamol you could buy over the counter (12 tablets or something) at one time. When I moved back here I couldn't believe the honking great big bottles of it.

I really don't see a lot of education going on in the US about this. But maybe I missing it. A big warning label on some of these meds (OTC and Rx) may help. Also, having doctors that prescribe meds with tylenol in them should educate their patients with a backup from the pharmacist.

I really never saw the big deal about Tylenol (I'm still a student) until I had a patient with liver failure from a combo of alcoholism and then taking about 6000-8000 mg of Tylenol per day for his daily hangover. He was in his 30's.

Do some people just not read the labels of medications, especially where it's noted to "not exceed X amount of pills" per day? Everyone who takes any kind of medication should know about what can happen if she takes too much of it. ANY medication, even OTC ones, can harm people if they take too much of it.

I think they are just going to ban the combined drugs - oxycodone and hydrocodone will still be available and so will tylenol, but not together in the same tablet.