The main problem is that the drugs companies started adding acetaminophen to everything, and so if you are taking multiple medicines, the cumulative effects build up.  It seems to be amazingly bad for a few young women who appear in great health.  They end up needing a liver transplant.

For some people, acetaminophen has a really steep toxicity curve.  In addition, the average person is more likely to have liver damage with a small overdose of acetaminophen than with a small overdose of other painkiller.

People abuse hydrocodone, and while they're overdosing on the narcotics, they're also overdosing on the acetaminophen, which might be worse for them physically than the hydrocodone.

Vicoprofen or Percodan are probably better for the average user(if taken with food) and actually "better" for the abuser, although the reality is that hydrocodone should be separated out from the other drugs, so that people can get the right dosage of each drug.

But no, to answer your question, aspirin isn't as bad.  No, I don't think this potential ban applies to Percodan.

I think this ban -- or at least more control -- makes sense.

I don't see this as much as a "keep your government hands off my body" thing as it would be a reaction to unintended consequences of an otherwise beneficial product.  To analogize, it's one thing to not prohibit people from riding a motorcycle helmetless.  But, riding that way is a conscious, deliberate choice.  It's a different thing to make it more difficult to get a pill which will when taken, quite unintentionally, blow up their liver.

This is a recommendation only, and from a sharply divided advisory panel at that.

Secondly, TeresaInSnow2 and Scribe have it exactly right.  The concern, and hence any possible ban that's being considered, is NOT the opiate or the acetominophen but the combination of the two in a single pill.

And boy, it's no wonder people are taking too much acetominophen.  The Tyelenol people have been advertising heavily for years about how safe their product is compared to aspirin.  Millions of people have the idea, solely from that advertising, that aspirin is somehow a terribly dangerous drug and that they should always take Tyelenol instead, and take as much as they want.

Since there are no unpleasant gastric effects from taking Tylenol, there's no obvious side effect to keep people from taking too much, either.  I've never understood why the aspirin manufacturers haven't fought back against this incredibly deceptive advertising.

Since it turns out acetominophen is far more dangerous than most of us thought, it needs to be kept separated out from other things so people at least have some concept of how much of it they're taking.  I'm 100 percent in favor of that.  I don't even understand why it's necessary to put acetominophen in with an opiate, but if it is, the two things can be prescribed separately to be taken together.

Really, it is a bad idea to combine them because of the toxicity of acetominophen and all the reasons people may take or need a higher dose of the narcotic. Taking more than the recommended dose of acetominophen can destroy (completely destroy) your liver in 8 hours, whereas too much of the hydrocodone (within limits) is likely not to be as dangerous in most cases.

I don't see this as a recommendation to "ban" anything. Both hydrocodone, oxycodone, and acetominephen could still be prescribed separately and taken together. The only difference is that the patient who develops tolerance doesn't risk cooking his/her liver out of ignorance.

What an educated and aware public should do in this case is to be certain, absolutely certain, that this is not a covert continuation of the strategy to reduce opioid availability altogether. Both the narcotics and the acetominophen should be made as easily available separately as they are together. But without the acetominophen, the narcotics have much more "abuse potential", so that will be a fight, and a fight the American people will likely lose under the current policy.

What's especially dangerous is when you mix it with alcohol.

I'm not sure a ban is the right call, but it should have much bigger warning labels, and it should probably not be a first line treatment unless there is a reason to avoid aspirin or ibuprofen. My guess is that Advil + Codeine would work better after the dentist anyway.

Dr. Sandra L. Kweder, deputy director of the FDA's Office of New Drugs at the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, gave a strong hint of what the agency might do with the advisory panel's recommendations.

"I think the top recommendation of this committee was that the agency needs to do something to address and decrease the usual dose of acetaminophen, both for over-the-counter products and also prescription combination products," Kweder said during the press conference.

She added, "There was a clear message that there is a high likelihood of overdose from prescription narcotic/acetaminophen combination products. If we don't eliminate these combination products, we should certainly at least lower the usual acetaminophen dose patients receive in those prescription combination products."

At the very least the agency should require new warning labels on these prescription combinations that alert patients to the potential of liver damage if they take too much acetaminophen, she said.

Vicodin and Percocet are readily available in both brand name and generic forms in formulations with other pain relievers than Tylenol. I always insist on a formulation with ibuprofen rather than acetaminophen. And when I do, there's never any resistance from the doctor. In fact, they usually nod and agree that it's a better and safer option.

I never take anything with acetaminophen in it. Tylenol never did a thing for me, unlike ibuprofen or naproxen or even plain old aspirin. And once the news got out about acetaminophen's toxcity, it just reinforced my avoidance of the stuff.

Given what we now know about acetaminophen, doctors and dentists shouldn't be prescribing anything which contains it unless the patient has an extremely good reason for not taking formulations with other NSAIDs. And even then, the patient should be warned about side effect and inadvertent overdoses, and should be closely monitored.

But somehow, medical professionals continue to prescribe what is potentially a rapidly-fatal drug when other equally effective but safer options are available. I think it's just laziness -- the Tylenol-associated brand names roll off the tongue. They're the Kleenex and Xerox and Saran Wrap of the opioids.  But not nearly as benign.

So if the medical profession can't do its job carefully, then we're pretty much forced to take the option out of the hands of the prescription writers. But "oh noes" that patients won't be able to manage pain are silly. I have to believe that those objecting to a ban are in some fashion affiliated with Tylenol. Or the true grounds for their objections haven't been accurately presented in the press. Frex, that for a small group of patients who have ulcers and for whom acetaminophen is the preferred option, they won't be able to get the ideal formulation.

But even then, the doctor just has to write a prescription for a non-mixed version of the preferred opioid and tell the patient to take with one Tylenol.

Given how dangerous acetaminophen can be, I definitely agree with those who think we should be getting the stuff out of OTC cold and allergy treatments, etc. I don't take any of the mixed-together stuff for that reason. If I need something for upper respiratory, I'll take benadryl (which doesn't have any other active ingredients) and whatever pain reliever I need. It also allows me to better control how much of any drug I'm consuming at a time.

Folks have got to get back to the basics of health care: eat healthy, exercise, reduce stress in your life, and get more rest so your body can take care of itself the way nature designed it to. Most folks I've seen who tend to pop painkillers are exactly the ones who are workaholics who don't know when to take a break. They're domineering, pushy, and think they're so important they've got to run the show (and yes, I've been that kind of person myself at times so I know from personal experience what I'm talking about).

they had her on the Duragesic patch (she's a medicaid patient so the doctor really doesn't want to do anything but write here a prescription and get her out of the office--gotta love that pristine American health care system) but she did some research and found out that the life expectancy for persons on the Duragesic long-term weren't very good...but the doctor didn't want to take the time to change her prescription so my mom just went of the Duragesic cold-turkey after being on it for over a year...

she now takes the percocet so she'll have to keep a very close eye on this...

Whether this new regulation goes through or not, and I am dubious of it to begin with as a creature of freedom, the truth is the medical industry has convinced us we are weak and frail and that harms us, and will continue to harm us, more than we could ever imagine.  And this from a guy who suffered from intense back pain, survived dozens (DOZENS!) of herniated disks, major back surgery, you name it, and whose back pain, ultimately, was absolutely cured by absolutely NOTHING the medical industry offered me.  I cured myself by understanding the true origin of that pain.  Having suffered form chronic pain since I was a child (a child living in a lot of emotional/family chaos and abuse...hmmm), to be free of this pain (back, legs, shoulder, head, neck, you name it, I had it) was to be truly free as a person.  

Psychosomatic medicine is a lost medical art.  It is medicine that considers the deeply complex human brain to be just as important in disease and pain as the body itself.  As a person who was completely cured of my back and other chronic pain trouble through nothing more than understanding where all that back trouble originated (and it wasn't in my back predominatnly), I would urge everyone to simply study up on psychosomatic medicine.  It is not about fads, or certain excercises, or certain drugs.  It costs nothing more than how much you pay to buy a book and study it.  Psychosomatic medicine is a practice that treats the human mind as actually important and vital to good physical health.  That treats the mind as just as important as the body.  And that does make sense, no?  Our brains do control, um, much of our bodies, no?  When you consider, for instance, the "epidemic" of something like fibromyalgia, and the utter neglect and malpractic associated with its "treatment", you start to understand how we have long been led down a road by modern medicine that ALWAYS ends at a pill.  Never at understanding our complex nature, our complex emotions, and how repression can do us damage, but simply, take a pill and it will all be better.

Obviously, some medication is necessary for some people.  But much is beyond uneccessary.  It is harmful.  And that must stop.  Psychosomatic medicince offers the best hope for those who want to have hope, who want to understand how pain can be the product not simply of a broken part but of something deeper in our almost fathomless minds.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I sound like a cult member with this, I know, but I was completely cured by psychosomatic medicine, it worked and I know WHY it worked.  That alone is enough to make me a tad evangelic about it.  But it costs nothing, is not an plan or a program you pay for, it is simply knowledge put to effective use.  Knowledge, nothing more, nothing less.  What has anyone got to lose with a little insight?