Jim,
I am just wanting to rant about this medication. Prior to going to Vietnam I went through 4 months of combat training at Schofield Barracks in Hawaii. The odd fact of this is that we were all Air Force personnel being trained as Combat Security Policemen under a program known as Safeside. A good number of our trainers (all Air Force) were graduates of the Army Ranger program. Our training was similar.
Any time a person went on sick call to Wheeler Air Force Base they automatically figured you were trying to get out of the program and the main prescription was Darvon. Now the FDA has stated the the drug propoxphene (which is in Davon and Darvocet N) puts patients at risk of potentially serious or fatal heart rhythm abnormalities.
Agent Orange wasn't going to hurt us, Darvon was "good" stuff. Next I suppose we will find out that our weekly malaria pills could cause something. I apologize for this email but I just had to vent.
Reply:
There's a problem if you rant about the military giving you Darvon. The fact is that back then it was one of the most prescribed medicines ever...by everyone, not only the military.
Prescription drugs have that sort of history. You may be aware that cocaine and heroin were widely prescribed 100 years ago. I can't begin to name all the drugs that have been championed by scientists and then after 50 years of use we learn of hazardous side effects.
Along with Darvon I well remember APC tablets. Then there were salt tablet dispensers hanging near water spigots. Can you even imagine anyone telling you that you should take what equals two teaspoons of salt today?
It goes on today too...Celebrex was the best thing since sliced bread 15 years ago for arthritis and joint pain. Never mind that people dropped dead from heart attacks using the stuff.
It has always been that way, probably always will...