'The withdrawal of a popular painkiller from the market in the United Kingdom has led to a dramatic decrease in the number of suicides and accidental overdoses in that country, according to a study conducted by researchers from Oxford University's Centre for Suicide Research and published in the British Medical Journal.
The drug in question is a combination of the narcotic painkiller dextropropoxyphene (in the opioid family) with the over-the-counter painkiller acetaminophen, also known as paracetamol or Tylenol. In the United Kingdom, the drug was marketed as co-proxamol, but it is also known as Darvon with APAP, Capadex, Di-Antalvic, Di-Gesic and Lentogesic.
In 2005, the British Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) decided to remove co-proxamol from the market after statistics emerged suggesting that the drug was particularly dangerous, causing between 300 and 400 self-poisoning deaths every year. Approximately 80 percent of these deaths were intentional suicides.' (Read more)
