Darvon, Distalgesic - The Worst Drugs Ever

We - Drs Ulf and Birgitta Jonasson from Sweden - have studied the painkilling substance Propoxyphene - Darvon, Darvocet - since 1994 and we it is the worst drugs ever. No single drug have caused as many deaths.

If you want to know more, please go to my YouTube video:

http:/­/­www.youtube.com/­watch?v=vw5O4tgErsg

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I could not hear the whole video because the audio became scrambled. Do you have any other information which you can post back with?

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This is a message from

Ulf Jonasson, Doctor of Public Health on YouTube:

“Darvon, Distalgesic, Co-Proxamol " the worst drugs ever”

http:/­/­www.youtube.com/­watch?v=vw5O4tgErsg

Friends,

I would like to tell you a story, a very sad story about a painkiller that has been around in the American society since 1957 " that is exactly 50 years. The name of the drug is DARVON or DARVON-N or DARVOCET. It is basically the same drug. In Europe the drug is called DISTALGESIC or CO-PROXAMOL. The working substance in the drug is PROPOXYPHENE or DEXTROPROPOXYPHENE as we call it in Europe.

We think drugs - containing PROPOXYPHENE - are the worst drugs ever, among prescribed drugs. No single drug in the history has caused so many fatal deaths as these drugs have done during the last 50 years.

How come I can sit here and say that? Are you supposed to believe me?

We " my wife Birgitta and myself - Ulf Jonasson, we are both doctors, PhD:s " have studied the dangers with PROPOXYPHENE since 1993, that is 13-14 years.

We have written and published 8 scientific articles about PROPOXYPHENE. We have also written and defended two doctorial dissertations about the drug and its fatal consequences. And to get our alarming data outside the academic world, we also wrote a popular science version of our research that was published both in Swedish and in English. The English name of the book is “Fatalities due to use or misuse of painkillers “

We think we have studied the consequences of using PROPOXYPHENE in a quite proper way, and therefore we will tell this sad story about a drug that probably have killed more people than any drug in the history.

One of the Big Pharmas in US, Eli Lilly “invented” PROPOXYPHENE in 1953 and it took some years before it came out on the market. There was a need for a painkiller without side effects in the early 50s " and Lilly found PROPOXYPHENE. Have you heard this story before - a drug without side effects???

The drug was called DARVON " I am sure you have heard about it - and it became immediately very popular. It was not for the pain killing effects the drug became a financial success. Later on, studies showed that the pain killing effect was not better than aspirin or acetaminophen " like Tylenol. The users felt good, because DARVON is an opiate " close to methadone, morphine and heroin " and it influence your brain, you feel good. The drug influences your Central Nervous System.

As I told you before, we have studied PROPOXYPHENE since 1993. Our main result was that during the investigated years 1992 " 1999 - 8 years - 200 persons in Sweden, were poisoned to death every year due to PROPOXYPHENE " poisoning. 200 persons died every year because they used a very popular painkiller and we thought this was very alarming. Sweden is a quite small country - we have just about 9 million inhabitants. In United States there are soon 300 million inhabitants and we knew, thanks to international statistics, that the American people used even more PROPOXYPHENE that the Swedish people did. Is it therefore possible for us to assume that there is more that 30 times as many fatal deaths in United States as in Sweden.

Yes, we think so.

If we look at the consumption of PROPOXYPHENE in United States compared to Sweden, we find some very interesting figures. The average consumption of PROPOXYPHENE in Sweden - during the investigated years 1992-1999 - was 2 400kg/year. In United States you consumed an average of 99 400 kg/year. It is more than 40 times as much in US than in Sweden. Is it possible that the numbers of fatal deaths in US are 40 times more??? What do you think?

Here are some more figures. We know that consuming 2 400 kg/year in Sweden, caused 200 fatal death every year. You can say that it became one fatal death for consuming every 12 kilograms in Sweden. I think you understand and accept the metaphor. How many fatal death could that be if you consumed 99 400 kilogram a year in US??

The numbers are so high, you will not even think about them. And it gets even worse if you think back 50 years, consuming 80 " 90 - 100 000 kilograms a year in 50 years!!! In 2005 the consumption was 110 040 kg.

I will also mention some figures about the PROPOXYPHENE-situation in United Kingdom. They have also had huge problems with fatal poisonings due to PROPOXYPHENE. In the year 2004, some 1,5 million persons got 7,5 million prescriptions on their version of PROPOXYPHENE, namely CO-PROXAMOL. These 7,5 million prescriptions became more than 900 000 000 CO-PROXAMOL pills. In the same year there were around 24 million prescriptions in United States, these 24 million prescriptions became almost 3 billion pills containing PROPOXYPHENE. This is 3 followed by nine zeros…

The medical product authorities in UK; the MHRA, decided January the 31st, 2005 that PROPOXYPHENE " products would be phased out in the country till the end of the year. They did not succeed doing that. Why, there were so many problems to stop using the drug for the users, so many side effects, so much suffering to get rid of the drug.

MHRA then decided the drug to be out of the market in the end of the year 2006, but they did not succeed this time either. Today - the MHRA are saying that the drug definitive will be out of the market last December this year. Will they do that??? I do hope so.

Why do not the US authorities inform the American society about these harming drugs? We can put the answer in just two worlds, THE LAW. We have different laws in Sweden and in US. In Sweden we have one federal law for all four branches of the forensic medicine, which are medicine, chemistry, psychiatric and genetics.

In United States you have different laws in different states. In some states you have the old English system of CORONERS " and they are more investigators than medical doctors, you also have the MEDICAL EXAMINER SYSTEM, and they are medical doctors, but usually not specialists in forensic medicine.

And most important of all, in Sweden, the medical doctors take a blood test of all dead persons that come to the forensic medicine station. And these blood tests are all screened for every legal drug there is in Sweden, and that includes PROPOXYPHENE. Thanks to that routine we find our PROPOXYPHENE-cases, and unfortunately you do not find so many PROPOXYPHENE cases.

In Unites States, the decision to take a blood test is on the level of every one of the 3 200 counties in the country. And by many reasons the needed blood tests are mostly not taken. I think this is a big problem for your country - you loose lots of important information in many areas of medicine, missing the prevalence of PROPOXYPHE is just one.

I would like say a few more worlds about who are responsible for these tragedies, the many fatalities due to poisoning from PROPOXYPHENE. The manufacturers are, as I said earlier - ELI LILLY. The have earned billions of dollar during the last 47 or 48 years. Why do I not say the last 50 years?

The reason I say 47 or 48 years is that ELI LILLY sold the rights to their brands DARVON and the others - to some less known US pharmaceutical companies. And these companies were apparently not aware of our research. If they have known about this research, they would have been stupid to get into this crazy business of a drug that kills. LILLY has known about research since 1999 " at least in Sweden. We have printed proof for that.

LILLY is afraid of the consequences when the drug will be banned. They are afraid of how many people that will sue them because they have lost some dear ones, a father, a mother, a brother, a sister, a cousin, an aunt, an uncle or just a very close friend " that have died after that they have used a painkiller, fore example DARVON, DARVON-N or DARVOCET.

Do you remember VIOXX?? This drug was withdrawn from the market in 2004. The manufacturer, MERCK & Co, said that there was in increasing risk to get heart problem when using VIOXX. They talked about increasing risk, we talk about fatal deaths, thousands of fatal deaths " just in United States. Now MERCK & CO has to pay billions of dollars in damages.

You can say, that ELI LILLY, almost to the last minute - earned millions of dollars every year on their PROPOXYPHENE- drugs. Both in Sweden and in UK they did the same thing. They sold DISTALGESIC to another company in Sweden and UK. Kind of a surprise for this company MEDA " they bought a drug that was banned just after a short time.

Money are apparently more important than human lives for ELI LILLY, It is a simple as that.

I would like to finish this message by telling you how things could develop. After restrictions were implemented twice in Sweden, 2001 and 2005, thanks to our research - we now can say that 500 " 600 lives have been saved, just in Sweden.

During 1992-99 some 200 persons were poisoned to death every year. The Medical Product Agency in Sweden recently informed that during the year 2005, 56 persons were poisoned to death. And we feel proud of what we have done to save lives.

We now feel a moral obligation to inform about the dangers with PROPOXYPHENE all over the world. And we know that, when the FDA will ban DARVON and the OTHER PROPOXYPHENE-brands, lots of lives- thousands and thousands - will be saved in Unites States. If the FDA doesn´t do that, the sad story continues.

We thank you for watching this video.

Good bye

Ulf Jonasson

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while this is an interesting article it has some lacking in fact which i like to find out. the sampling in Sweden how many were overdose,combined with liquor,other drugs this is an incomplete study. and we think is not scientific we need the details
thank you

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To Jr23,

We have all these data in - as you ask for - our 8-9 scientific articles, and you will find them at Pubmed , Search Dextropropoxyphene and Jonasson b.

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This is to funny more people have died drunk driving why not take alcohol off the market 1st

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LOL Rhoda, why not just take all toxic chemicals off the market and legalize marijuana since it has so many therapeutic benefits and NOT A SINGLE PERSON HAS DIED from it!

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I'm a bit confused you mention The average consumption of PROPOXYPHENE in Sweden - during the investigated years 1992-1999 - was 2 400kg/year.
Due to the way this website displays characters there is a space, are you saying the average consumption (per person, based on a total population of 9 million?) was Twenty four hundred kg a year, then saying that there were 200 deaths associated with Propoxyphene?
If the 2,400 kg is correct and 100mg per tablet is assumed, then that would mean 24 million tablets were sold (not consumed.. that can't be proven). Wikipedia says 15.7 percent of the population is kids 15 or under. I'll assume for this post, to generally add 4 percent to include ages 16, 17, 18 , 19, 20.
So the number of children & young adults based on 19% percent of 9 million is 1,710,000, leaving an adult population of 7,290,000.
If an average script is 30 pills, that works out to 800,000 scripts of 30 pills. We'd have to assume about 60% of scripts are refills for the same person, especially in the light of the inference of dependency potential of all opiates.
So (very grossly) 480,000 continuous use patients, & 320,000 one script patients.

If our continuous group refills every month that then works out to 40,000 people. It is unlikely that more than a tiny fraction of the one time scripts would overdose, so the 200 deaths would come from the group of 40,000, which translates into 200 deaths per 40,000 patients or ONE HALF OF ONE PERCENT of the group of continuous users 40,000 x .005= 200.
The dangers of tylenol poisoning are far more well documented & provable than that of Propoxyphene, by numerous sources, and since most propoxyphene compounds contain Paracetamol (tylenol)...
from wikipedia:
The co-proxamol preparations available in the UK contained a sub-therapeutic dose of Paracetamol, 325mg per tablet. Patients were warned not to take more than 8 tablets in one day, a total dose of 2600mg Paracetamol per day. This is in comparison to the 4000mg daily limit on Paracetamol alone, a significantly higher dose.
So apparently the data is inconclusive, since it suggests that taking more than the prescribed daily dose of Paracetomol ALONE can result in liver failure. To blame the Propoxyphene ALONE seems to be a subjective stretch.
To restate, we are dealing with 200 deaths per 40,000 patients who were NOT separated out of your data due to pre-existing conditions such as compromised liver or kidney function, pre-existing heart conditions, or any other conditions as far as I can tell.
In my opinion, as well as the opinion of the majority of US Dr's, Tylenol itself should be considered as a potentially dangerous drug taken in continuous high dosage. Following your logic then, Tylenol itself should be subject to the same withdrawal from the market based on your methodology. I do not dispute that the prescribing threshold is very narrow in this drug before toxicity, however the same can be said for Chlordiazepoxide (librium) for instance, which has a relatively low ceiling before toxicity, but when used as directed, is considered safe. I would welcome your reply to this.

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davidh, how can you say not one single person has died from marijuana ? I hate when i hear potheads say that all the time like they know everything. Drug dealers kill eachother all the time, children from families of drug dealing descent have very high suicide rates, and people high on marijuana smash cars and kill themselves and other people, all the time. and you can die from an overdose, you can die from an overdose of water for christs sakes. so dont tell me not a single person has ever died from marijuana, grow up and learn somethin ya crazy high hippie. :-)

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Steve, you're talking out your ass.. David H obviously meant no-one has died from the CONSUMPTION of marijuana. Obviously there have been people killed in relation to the black market surrounding its use, but this is entirely due to the fact that it IS illegal. As for dying from an overdose, well theoretically it is possible I suppose, but you quote me just one recorded incident of anyone EVER dying from a marijuana overdose and I'll concede defeat. What's that, you can't? Well grow up and learn something ya retarded boring straighthead. :-)

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I agree with the last poster - Steve, you are talking completely OUT OF CONTEXT.

I'm in California and I just really hope that this November's election will finally legalize marijuana. God knows the state can use the tax revenue, plus with pot being safer than alcohol, why the hell not regulate and tax it for those 21 and over ?!? ...

P.S. I'll tell you why ... because the big pharma companies could stand to lose billions if people start growing their own pot and realize that such a natural miracle drug can work better than patented chemicals.

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BECAUSE OF A BUS FLATEN MY HEAD AN ABOUT 7 YEARS LATER PROXY HCL 65MG IS THE ONLY DRUG THAT HAS EVER WORKED, AND THE PAIN CLINICS HAVE SAID NO OPTIONS LEFT, THIS HAPPEN IN 89 I AND NOW 68 AND THE PAIN IS UNBEARABLE. I CAN'T GET THE ONLY DRUG THAT WORKS, YOU HAVE KNOW IDEA OF WHAT YOU A TALKING ABOUT I HAVE STUDYED IT MUCH MORE THAN YOU! ALEX

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I have studied this. First Coprox package leaflets never suggest adjustment for body mass thus risking overdose for little slim women. Second many problems arise from co-use of alcohol (or abuse). Third it's good for suicide, reason UK stopped. None of these should bar use by appropriate sufferers. Many used drugs are similarly risky but pain tratment needs what suits YOU.

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BEE STINGS KILL MORE THAN PROPROX, I HAVE TAKEN 4 TO 6 CAP OF PROPROXPHENE EVERY DAY FOR THE LAST 20 YEARS. AND NEVER ANY PROPLEMS UNTELL THEY TOOK IT OFF THE MARKET. THEREARE NO PAIN PILLS THAT WORK ON ME,NOW I AM TAKING 8 2MG TABS HYDROMORPHONE DAILY AND WORKS SOMEWHAT! I AM AND ALL WAYS HAVE BEEN IMMUINE TO MORPHINE TYPE DRUGS. NOT ALL DRUGS WORK DIFFERENT ON ALL PEOPLE. VALPORIC ACID USE TO KEEP PEOPLE IN PSYCH WARDS. TO MAKE THEM CONFORM,. KILLS LOT MORE BUT EVERYONE JUST LOOKS THE OTHER WAY, ALSO IN NURSING HOMES.DOES LOT OF BRAIN DAMAGE AND MAKES PEOPLE HELPLESS WHICH MAKES THEM EASYER TO TAKE CARE OF.
PROXPHYNE WITH NO ADDITIVES WORK MUCH BETTER. ALEX PALMER 70 YEARS OLD

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Millions of people are poisoned to death by any number of medications every year. Sweden is a society obsessed with controlling the citizens in every way possible and you sir, like some many other Swedes, need to quit worrying about what is going on in the UK and US and, frankly, mind your own damn business. You are just another pip squeak Swede who is suffering from "little brother syndrome". Why don't you write a paper about how ignorant and arrogant Swedes actually are and get some help with that, so you don't have to be so damn annoying? And while you are at it, why don't you write a paper about how many people are dying each year in Sweden, "the drunk state", from alcoholism? And you don't even need a prescription for that!

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I do not understand you: I had a metal plate inserted in my arm after a horrible fracture from a fall from a bicycle, The pain meant I had to leave my job. Now I have distalgesic, I can work again because the pain does not affect me as much. Distalgesic saved my career and allowed me to work and function again. I am grateful for it. Why are you telling me I am wrong?

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Distalgesic was a miracle drug, shame it is not available anymore, as the above mentioned bee stings kill more humans than distalgesic a year....

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I'm 65 years old and have hemophilia, a lifelong bleeding disorder. When I was a child, drugs to counter hemophilia had not yet been developed. Bleeding into joints, a terribly painful situation, was common. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Darvon Compound (propoxyphene and aspirin) was the analgesic recommended for such bleeds. The first was ineffective against severe pain, the second is now known to be a blood thinner and so specifically contraindicated for Hemophiliacs. To those responsible for promoting and prescribing Darvon Compound to children with bleeding disorders .... I hope that somewhere along the way they have had the opportunity to truly understand and experience what they did to me and my similarly affected brothers.

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As a teenager in the 1950's I had horrendous headaches. Only distelgesic helped, no other drug was effective. It was banned because of abuse - mainly alcohol.

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You are a very dangerous person. My husband has been taking distalgesic since 1988 following s cerebral and spinal bend - he was a commercial diver. He was not expected to live, then he was not expected to walk again. It took two years of very hard work to get him on his feet again. However he still suffers from Brown-Sequard Syndrome and HPNS (you look it up as you think you are so clever). The only product which stops the tremors and myoclonic jerks is distalgesic, even coproxamol is not as effective. Now he cannot get any relief, otherdrugs have been tried in the past but nothing worked. How does it feel to leave a patient who was functioning to rot away in bed. YOU MUST BE SO PROUD OF YOURSELF. It is not the drug it is the user/prescriber who is at fault in the case of drug misuse.

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I have been a suffer from RLS form the age of about 18 a generic disorder my father, his brother who sadly hung himself back in the 60's with pains in his legs, my brother suffers in aus and my youngest son is now 34. For years I was prescribed co proxomol and it worked wonders, I think I was on 1 or 2 a day then professionals like yourselves decided too many were abusing it. My G P didn't even have the curtesy to talk to me. I just arrived at the pharmacy to find Panadol as a replacement after many arguments at my surgery ending in threatening that they may find me, a normal well balanced women hanging from a tree. They then sent me to a neurologist who prescribed zopiclone, a Parkinsons drug. It helped I believed some but not me. But now in the UK they have decided that those who are not Parkinson suffers cannot be prescribed too expensive! Withdrawals weren't pleasant but I can cope with stomach cramps, sweats, etc. But my legs and arms are back with a vengeance. Did any of you professionals ever wonder how many suffers are now buying on an illegal market, couldn't there have been some way to separate those at risk and level headed folk in pain. I don't know what to do now. The addiction system in the UK sucks. They seem to have given up and just supply the unfortunate folk with Methadone that seems even harder to get off of than other opioids. And the powers that be know full well they sell the dam stuff. Help please.

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My son died after taking this drug "recreationally" He was 19 It was his responsibility that he took a drug that was not prescribed but I fear his death was partially due to the compounds in this particular drug He was a great young man who made a fatal mistake one night in Oct 1999

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