Fall in deaths involving painkiller co-proxamol after drug withdrawn in UK
During the six years following the withdrawal of the analgesic co-proxamol in the UK in 2005, there was a major reduction in poisoning deaths involving this drug, without apparent significant increase in deaths involving other analgesics. These are the findings of a study by Keith Hawton of the University of Oxford, UK and colleagues and published in this week's PLoS Medicine.
Co-proxamol, a prescription analgesic (or pain killer) containing paracetamol and the opioid dextropropoxyphene, was implicated in a fifth of drug-poisoning suicides in England and Wales between 1997 and 1999. Mainly in response to concerns over the drug's widespread use for suicidal poisoning, co-proxamol was withdrawn completely from use in the UK during the period 2005-2007. A previous study by the same authors showed beneficial effects on the number of co-proxamol-related suicides and no evidence of an increase in poisoning deaths from other prescription analgesics during this three-year withdrawal phase.
But what about the longer-term effects of co-proxamol withdrawal? In this interrupted time series study, Hawton and colleagues assessed the impact of coproxamol withdrawal in England and Wales by comparing data on analgesic prescribing and suicide rates collected between 1998 and 2004 and between 2005 and 2010. They found that on average, from 2008 to 2010 there were 20 co-proxamol-related deaths per year, including suicides and accidental poisonings, in comparison to more than 250 per year during the 1990s.
Although the authors did not investigate suicides related to the use of multiple drugs or investigate whether suicides involving methods other than drug-related poisoning have increased since co-proxamol withdrawal, they found little evidence of a change in the number of poisoning deaths involving other analgesics after co-proxamol withdrawal, in spite of increased prescribing. Despite its limitations, the study's findings suggest that the withdrawal of co-proxamol in the UK, and possibly elsewhere, should have major beneficial effects on suicide rates, at least in the relatively short term.
The authors comment: "Now that prescribing of the more toxic constituent of co-proxamol (dextropropoxyphene) has been withdrawn throughout Europe and production has ceased in the US and Canada the impact of this initiative should be evaluated on a larger scale."
More information: Hawton K, Bergen H, Simkin S, Wells C, Kapur N, et al. (2012) Six-Year Follow-Up of Impact of Co-proxamol Withdrawal in England and Wales on Prescribing and Deaths: Time-Series Study. PLoS Med 9(5): e1001213. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001213
KH and SS were temporary advisors to the MHRA for its evaluation of the efficacy and safety profile of co-proxamol. CW works for the Office for National Statistics. All other authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
The authors acknowledge financial support from the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Programme Grants for Applied Research scheme as part of a NIHR programme of work related to suicide prevention (RP-PG-0606-1247).
Provided by
Public Library of Science
-
Reduction in suicides after withdrawal of painkiller
Jun 19, 2009 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Drug poisoning growing cause of death
Apr 04, 2008 |
not rated yet |
0
-
UK: Suicide rates in young men at lowest levels since 1970s
Feb 15, 2008 |
not rated yet |
0
-
UK suicide, homicide rates in mental health patients revealed
Jul 19, 2011 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Deaths from strong prescription painkillers are on the increase
Aug 24, 2011 |
not rated yet |
0
-
Motion perception revisited: High Phi effect challenges established motion perception assumptions
Apr 23, 2013 |
3 / 5 (2) |
2
-
Anything you can do I can do better: Neuromolecular foundations of the superiority illusion (Update)
Apr 02, 2013 |
4.5 / 5 (11) |
5
-
The visual system as economist: Neural resource allocation in visual adaptation
Mar 30, 2013 |
5 / 5 (2) |
9
-
Separate lives: Neuronal and organismal lifespans decoupled
Mar 27, 2013 |
4.9 / 5 (8) |
0
-
Sizing things up: The evolutionary neurobiology of scale invariance
Feb 28, 2013 |
4.8 / 5 (10) |
14
-
Pressure-volume curve: Elastic Recoil Pressure don't make sense
May 18, 2013
-
If you became brain-dead, would you want them to pull the plug?
May 17, 2013
-
MRI bill question
May 15, 2013
-
Ratio of Hydrogen of Oxygen in Dessicated Animal Protein
May 13, 2013
-
Alcohol and acetaminophen
May 13, 2013
-
Marie Curie's leukemia
May 13, 2013
- More from Physics Forums - Medical Sciences
More news stories
Breakup of physician, drug company relationship could improve health care, cut cost
A new report suggests that improved health care and significant reductions in drug costs might be attained by breaking up the age-old relationship between physicians and drug company representatives who promote the newest, ...
Medications
3 hours ago |
not rated yet |
0
FDA has safety concerns on Merck insomnia drug
Federal health regulators say an experimental insomnia drug from Merck can help patients fall asleep, but it also carries worrisome side effects, including daytime drowsiness and suicidal thinking.
Medications
5 hours ago |
not rated yet |
0
US adviser on board of firm that sold anthrax drug
(AP)—Former Navy Secretary Richard J. Danzig, who has served as a bio-warfare adviser to the president, the Pentagon, and the Department of Homeland Security, urged the government to stockpile an anti-anthrax drug while ...
Medications
11 hours ago |
5 / 5 (1) |
0
Acne pill benefits outweigh blood clot risk: EU agency
Europe's medicines watchdog said Friday the benefits of acne drug Diane-35, also widely used as a contraceptive, outweigh the risk of developing blood clots in the veins—when correctly prescribed.
Medications
May 17, 2013 |
not rated yet |
0
First influenza vaccine brought to clinical testing
Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) and Switzerland's Cytos Biotechnology AG today announced that the first healthy volunteer has been dosed in a Phase 1 clinical trial with their ...
Medications
May 17, 2013 |
5 / 5 (1) |
1
The compound in the Mediterranean diet that makes cancer cells 'mortal'
New research suggests that a compound abundant in the Mediterranean diet takes away cancer cells' "superpower" to escape death. By altering a very specific step in gene regulation, this compound essentially re-educates cancer ...
Study shows how bilinguals switch between languages
(Medical Xpress)—Individuals who learn two languages at an early age seem to switch back and forth between separate "sound systems" for each language, according to new research conducted at the University of Arizona.
Study suggests new source of kidneys for transplant
Nearly 20 percent of kidneys that are recovered from deceased donors in the U.S. are refused for transplant due to factors ranging from scarring in small blood vessels of the kidney's filtering units to the organ going too ...
Discovery of circadian clock in mice hair reveals period of time when damage from radiotherapy can be quickly repaired
Discovering that mouse hair has a circadian clock - a 24-hour cycle of growth followed by restorative repair - researchers suspect that hair loss in humans from toxic cancer radiotherapy and chemotherapy ...
SARS-like virus claims new life in Saudi
A Saudi man who had contracted the coronavirus has died, raising the death toll in the kingdom from the SARS-like virus to 16, the health ministry announced on Monday on its Internet website.
Gym class reduces probability of obesity, study finds for first time
Little is known about the effect of physical education (PE) on child weight, but a new study from Cornell University finds that increasing the amount of time that elementary schoolchildren spent in gym class reduces the probability ...