Providing evidence of the link between compound analgesics and kidney disease that led to the ban of these painkillers.
For years, compound analgesics — powders like Bex and Vincent's — were a household staple, marketed heavily to Australian women as a remedy for everyday aches and pains. What wasn't known at the time was that habitual use of these products was causing a quiet epidemic of kidney disease.
In the early 1960s, Professor Priscilla Kincaid-Smith, then a Senior Research Fellow at the Baker Institute, began observing a pattern. While studying hypertension and its treatments, she noticed that a significant number of patients visiting The Alfred Hospital's hypertension clinic were showing signs of what would come to be known as analgesic nephropathy — kidney damage caused by long-term use of compound painkillers.
The culprit, it emerged, was phenacetin, a key ingredient in these products. Taken in large amounts over time, it was destroying kidney tissue. These drugs were also addictive, meaning many users were consuming far more than intended. At the time, kidney disease caused by analgesic use was the second most common cause of end-stage kidney failure in Australia.
Kincaid-Smith went on to lead the Nephrology Department at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and spent years characterising the epidemic, conducting experimental studies and lobbying hard for policy reform. Her persistence paid off. By 1977, compound analgesics were banned in Australia — a direct result of research that began in the Baker Institute's corridors.
