• CNN, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Daily Mail, Financial Times , Wednesday, July 1, 2009 10:36 AM

A panel assembled by the Food and Drug Administration voted 20 to 17 to advise the FDA to remove from the market drugs such as Vicodin and Percocet that combine acetaminophen with narcotics. It also advised the FDA to lower the maximum daily dose of acetaminophen in over-the-counter and prescription medications, and to address the formulations and dosing recommendations for children, Saundra Young and Taylor Gandossy report.

Acetaminophen is one of the most commonly used drugs for treating pain and fever, but overdoses have been linked to 56,000 emergency room visits, 26,000 hospitalizations and 458 deaths during the 1990s, according to one study. Another estimates that acetaminophen is the likely cause of most of the estimated 1,600 acute liver failures each year.

Libertarian ex-congressman and Atlanta Journal-Constitution blogger Bob Barr writes that it was touch-and-go for Procter & Gamble yesterday, whose NyQuil contains acetaminophen, but that it has "survived this latest attack of the nanny state." But he feels that the newly energized FDA, "now headed by a zealous, former New York City health commissioner" spells trouble for any company "that manufactures an ingestible or inhalable product."

Meanwhile, tabloids here and abroad are widely speculating that Michael Jackson was taking copious amounts of various prescription drugs, including Vicodin. Speaking of Jacko, Financial Times reports that interest in his music is "surging"; Amazon, for example, sold more albums in the 24 hours after his death than it had in the previous 11 years .

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