New painkiller rules may cause health care headache
| June 30, 2009 | 5:38 PM
More journal entries from Cindy House »
A Food and Drug Administration advisory panel recently recommended cutting the maximum daily over-the-counter dosage of acetaminophen — the key painkiller in Tylenol — in order to keep people from taking too much of the drug and damaging their livers.
There’s no question that acetaminophen can harm your liver when taken in large doses. There’s also no question that, when they’re hurting, many people take more pain pills than the back of the bottle recommends.
In that sense, cutting acetaminophen tablet strength would likely cut down on cases of accidental liver damage. So, if the FDA adopts the panel’s guidelines — and it usually does — your typical 1,000 mg. Extra Strength Tylenol dose (two tablets of 500 mg. each) would be cut to 650 mg. (two tablets of 325 mg. each). An FDA advisory report says that the lower dosage would be safer, “without much loss of efficacy.”
But the panel also recommended that the 1,000 mg. dose still be available with a prescription. To me, that suggests a realization that the lower dosage won’t be effective for an as-yet-unknown number of patients. And that means we may see a flood of folks with headaches and arthritis running to the doctor for Extra Strength Tylenol. Or more expensive prescription pain medications.
Betcha the big drug companies are grinning.
Read more at The New York Times.
Read the FDA report “Recommendations for FDA Interventions to
Decrease the Occurrence of Acetaminophen Hepatotoxicity”
acetaminophen, food and drug administration, health, medicine, tylenol
