Medication Safety

     How safe are the over-the-counter  pain relief medications that we take every day?  We count on trusted brands such as Tylenol, Bayer, and Excedrin among others to ease our discomforts and pains.  The Food And Drug Administration is taking on these major pain relieving manufacturers.   Many brands of our leading pain relievers contain acetaminophen.   A harmful and often ignored side effect that can be caused by the overuse of acetaminophen is liver damage.

     The Food And Drug Administration has set standards that state legally allowed doses of pain relievers should not contain more than four grams of acetaminophen a day.  Many of our trusted brand name pain relieving medications fall below these critical margins.  Any dose greater than the stated four grams per day of acetaminophen increases the risk of liver damage.

     Thousands are hospitalized by accidental overdoses of acetaminophen.  Splitting headaches and miserable joint pain can be so unbearable.  A quick solution is to take another pill or two.  We tell ourselves, it’s only over the counter medicine.   What can it hurt?  The results can become tragic.  Experts in the pharmaceutical field are being asked what can be done to lessen the number of accidental overdoses of acetaminophen that are being taken each year.

     We rely on our leading pain relieving manufacturers to dispense to us medications that are reliable and safe.  Every precaution should be taken to insure that these standards are met.  The future of our healthcare depends on it.