Advisory Panel Suggests Banning Vicodin, Percocet

By Rachel Stockton

An advisory panel is encouraging the FDA to ban the painkillers Vicodin and Percocet because of the risk of liver damage due to the toxicity of acetaminophen. The painkillers combine narcotics with acetaminophen; taken over time, these prescriptions become ineffective without a dosage increase, thus leading to toxic levels of acetaminophen consumption.  

According to the online news journal Times and Transcription, Dr. David Juurlink, head of clinical pharmacology and Toxicology at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto stated that the specific dose of acetaminophen that’s taken determines whether or not it is therapeutic or toxic. 

The panel initially convened because of concern over the increase in the sale of over-the-counter acetaminophen products. This increase has led to 400 deaths and 42,000 hospital visits directly due to an overdose.

One problem seems to stem from public perception. Many consumers do not realize that by taking two different over-the-counter medications, they are inadvertently exceeding the recommended dosage of acetaminophen, largely because they are unaware that their cold medicines and other drugs contain it. This lack of knowledge results in the patient taking several different medicines, all containing acetaminophen.

There’s also the problem of impulsive overdosing: if patients do not feel pain relief after a certain period of time, some of them will simply take more acetaminophen. For the last several years, Britain has packaged all acetaminophen products in bubble wrap, to prevent impulsive consumption of the drug (New York Times).

This is not the first time that acetaminophen products have been the focal point of a special advisory committee. In 2007, there was a national briefing that declared an increase in accidental death due to acetaminophen based products. Researchers at that time stated that the majority of those deaths occurred after patients took narcotic-acetaminophen combined drugs, such as Vicodin and Percocet (New York Times).

Approved by the FDA in 1951, acetaminophen has been on the market since 1955. Like most drugs, the body rids itself of the pain reliever through the liver. In 2002, another advisory panel informed the FDA of its concern over acetaminophen overdosing, urging stronger warnings on all OTC products containing the drug. During that convention, Dr. William Lee of Texas Southwest Medical Center in Dallas testified that after studying over 300 cases of liver failure throughout the United States, he found that 40% of those occurrences were attributed to toxic levels of acetaminophen(New York Times).

The FDA does not have to comply with suggestions posed by the most recent panel, but they usually do. Another panel recommendation is the lowering of the highest dosage of acetaminophen from 500 mgs to 325 mgs. Additionally, should the FDA follow the advice of the panel, roughly seven painkillers will likely be banned.