A Wonder Drug?

After 30 years of hailing Tylenol as the safest pain killer available, the manufacturers have recently warned people not to take the drug if they consume as few as 3 alcoholic drinks per day. That's practically the definition of a moderate drinker -- the businessman who has a martini with lunch, a whisky at home after work and a glass of wine with supper. And the warning should include people who have compromised liver function due to reasons other than drinking.

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Think popping extra pain pills can't hurt? Think again: Poisonings from the nation's most popular pain reliever seem to be rising, making acetaminophen (Tylenol) the leading cause of acute liver failure.

Taken by some 100 million people a year, Tylenol can kill or require a liver transplant if the maximum dosage is exceeded or it's used by people with abnormal liver function.

Some unwittingly take too much, not realizing acetaminophen is in hundreds of products, from the over-the-counter remedies Theraflu and Excedrin to the prescription narcotics Vicodin and Percocet. Just doubling the maximum daily dose can be enough to kill, warns Dr. Anne Larson of the University of Washington Medical Center.

Over six years researchers tracked 662 victims of acute liver failure who were treated at 22 transplant centers. Almost half were acetaminophen-related. More remarkable was the steady increase: Acetaminophen was to blame for 28 percent of the liver poisonings in 1998, but caused 51 percent of cases in 2003.

That makes acetaminophen the most common cause of acute liver failure, the researchers report in the journal Hepatology.

Dr. William Lee of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center wants to copy Britain, which saw a 30 percent drop in severe liver poisonings after restricting how much acetaminophen could be bought at once in drug stores.

(Note: Think aspirin is safer if you drink? Wrong! Aspirin and the NSAID class of pain killers it belongs to (including Alleve) causes stomach and intestinal bleeding that can lead to cancer. If you drink even moderately or have abnormal liver function, there is NO safe pain medication on the market. Arthritis sufferers learned this the hard way with Vioxin, which killed hundreds if not thousands.)