Darvon & Darvocet Banned For Propoxyphene?

The FDA has at last banned Darvon, Darvocet, and other brand/generic drugs containing propoxyphene -- a safety-plagued painkiller from the 1950s.

Xanodyne Pharmaceuticals Inc., of Newport, agreed to the ban at the request of the Food and Drug Administration, which also asked makers of generic versions of the drugs' core compound, known as propoxyphene, to stop selling it in the U.S.

Similar withdrawals from the market of the drug also known as propoxyphene were recommended in Europe in 2009 and are already under way.

Propoxyphene was first approved by the FDA in 1957, but has been shadowed for years by safety concerns.
Why did it take so long to ban Darvon & Darvocet if they knew this drug was bad for your heart? The same drug was already banned in the UK several years ago.

The FDA should have acted quicker.
New proof of heart side effects, in studies of healthy people taking normal doses of the drug, prompted the FDA to act now.

Darvon's ability to fight pain has long been questioned. Back in 1972, a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine compared marketed pain relievers and found aspirin to be the best. Darvon was no better than a sugar pill.

The Food and Drug Administration says the intake of Darvon and Darvocet can lead to potentially fatal heart rhythm abnormalities.

Dr. Sidney Wolfe of the Public Citizen's Health Research Group said it was too little, too late, noting that Britain banned the drug six years ago.
The decision to remove the drug came after the FDA reviewed a new trial study that looked at the drug's impact on heart rhythms.