One of the world’s most prescribed drugs is dangerous and shouldn’t even be on the market, says America’s drug regulator, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
The painkiller that contains hydrocone and acetaminophen – once marketed as Vicodin – causes severe liver injury and can even result in death. In 2009, an FDA advisory group recommended that Vicodin and another painkiller, Percocet, which contains a similar analgesic combination, should be removed from the market. The drug kills around 400 people each year in the US, and around 42,000 patients need hospital treatment after taking the drug.
Despite these concerns, doctors in the US last year wrote out 131 million prescriptions for the drug, making it the most prescribed drug in America.
(Source: The Use of Medicines in the United States: Review of 2010; the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics).
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