According to a Swedish Doctor, the FDA has known about the side effects of Darvon/Darvocet long before (over 10 years) the recall of the drug in November 2010. This Swedish Doctor also claims that the Darvon Lawsuits have the potential to land its plaintiffs large amounts of money.

The recent recall by the FDA is just the latest part of a story that dates back all the way to the 1970’s. Back in the 1970’s the group Public Citizen, attempted to have Darvon/Darvocet removed from the US Market. They claimed that the drug has dangerous side effects that can damage the Heart. This petition of the Public Citizen failed, however, Ulf Jonasson, a Doctor of Public Health in Sweden, visited the U.S. in 2003 and 2004, meeting with doctors at Public Citizen, which issued a second petition for propoxyphene’s ban in 2006.  Jonasson and his wife have been researching the side effects of Darvon and Darvocet since 1993, when asked about working with Public Citizen he replied “We have researched Darvon side effects since 1993, and Public Citizen has worked hard to ban the drug before that.” “There could have been hundreds of thousands of deaths due to Darvon and Darvocet over the past 50 years.”

Jonasson also published several reports in the European market about the dangers of the drug, these reports led to several measures being changed. First it helped create new prescription regulations in Sweden, effecting the amount of drug being sent out in the country lowering the deaths caused by it per year by at least 60%. The reports also led to many European countries, including the United Kingdom (UK) and the European Union (EU) to outright ban the drug in 2005.

Dr. Jonasson claims that he sent the same information to the FDA in 1999 as the Europeans received. The FDA however, did not take action upon receiving the reports of the dangers of Darvon and Darvocet. The only explanation that Dr. Jonasson could give was that “We believe the FDA is influenced very much by the drug companies, and we know that Eli Lilly, the Darvon manufacturer (the original manufacturer; currently manufactured by Xanodyne Pharmaceuticals, Inc.), has known about Darvon side effects for many years.”

If you, like many, have been injured by Darvon/Darvocet and would like to know more about filing a lawsuit, please feel free to visit the Darvon/Darvocet main site for more information.

Darvon and Darvocet has been equally produced and exclusively distributed by selected pharmaceutical companies like Eli Lilli and Co., the original manufacturing company of Darvon and Darvocet; Xanodyne, a Kentucky based company that also sells and markets the prescribed drugs which actually acquired the drugs from aaiPharma Inc. in 2005 for the value of $209 million. Propoxyphene in one active drug that can be found in the said prescribed drugs, and later has to play an important role to the pursuant of Darvon Lawsuit. 

Let us take an example of Darvon Lawsuit filed by the Cincinnati family whose member of the family, to be more specific the daughter of Tammy and John Gilbert named “Nikki”died after taking the prescribed medicine. She was too young to meet her final journey in life. She was 22 years of age when she started taking the said drug for eight days. As requested by the FDA after having known the sudden incident in the Cincinnati family, Xanodyne themselves found out from their studies that propoxyphene is a cardiac toxin. The Darvon Lawsuit filed by this grieving family became more popular and in fact, was considered as one of the nine lawsuits filed against Xanodyne in the U.S District Court. The original manufacturer of Darvon and Darvocet- Eli Lilly and Co., defended that Nikki’s death didn’t cause her taking of the prescribed drug but because of the heart failure. But it should also remember that propoxyphene which one of the active chemical in Darvon and Darvocet is a cardiac toxin. The parents of Nikki responded that prior to the prescription of the medicine they put confidence to that drug hence it was being prescribed by the experts too. 

In their case, it was indeed worth fighting most especially that it loses life of the person, too young to be buried on the ground. This is just one of the million Darvon Lawsuits that Darvon and Darvocet manufacturing companies strongly face today. If you are unfortunate to know that you have also taken Darvon or Darvocet, look for a lawyer now and they’ll help you getting compensated. For more information, kindly hit the links provided.