Healthy Skepticism Library item: 8004

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Coombes R.
Is killing the pain worth the risk?
BMJ 2007 Jan 27; 334:(7586):186
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/334/7586/186

Abstract:

MPs staged a last ditch attempt to get an effective ban on the painkiller co-proxamol overturned last week. The bid was ultimately thwarted but it gave a valuable insight into how patients and doctors are handling the phased withdrawal of the once popular analgesic two years after the uncompromising decision was made.

Co-proxamol is a prescription only analgesic that combines paracetamol (325 mg) and dextropropoxyphene (32.5 mg). It has low side effects and is popular with patients with chronic pain. But it is also the second most frequent means of suicide with prescribed drugs in England and Wales, second only to tricyclic antidepressants. Concern about the number of such deaths was expressed in the BMJ as long ago as 1980.

In 2004 the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency announced a phased withdrawal of the painkiller. A review by the agency found that around 300-400 people a year die as . . .