FDA to Eliminate Vicodin & Percocet

Government experts voted Tuesday to enforce safety restrictions on the most widely used painkillers, Vicodin and Percocet. They are also reducing the maximum dose of Tylenol allowed.

With these new rules in place, Vicodin and Percocet would no longer be available to the public by prescription.

"We're here because there are inadvertent overdoses with this Vicodin & Percocet that are fatal and this is the one opportunity we have to eliminate this risk and do something that will have a big impact," said Dr. Judith Kramer of Duke University Medical Center.

One key panelist believes the dangers of the drug outweigh the benefits.

"It seems to me that problems with opiate combinations are clearly more prevalent," Dr. Lewis S. Nelson, chairman of the FDA's Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee, said during a Tuesday press conference held after the two-day meeting.

Explaining the panel's 20-17 vote to ban prescription acetaminophen/opiate like drugs, Nelson said, "There are many deaths that relate to problems with prescription opiate combination acetaminophen products like Vicodin & Percocet, whereas the number of deaths clearly related to the over-the-counter products are much more limited."

The problem is what do people with severe chronic pain do? They have to suffer because people don't know how to moderate their drugs? Seems to be punishing the many for the mistakes of the few. Another example of the Government saving us from ourselves.