Acetaminophen is the top cause of sudden liver failure in the United States. And it is the active ingredient in Tylenol and countless other pain relievers. These analgesics have been known to cause liver damage, and to cause more than a hundred deaths every year, totaling to more than 1,500 preventable deaths in the past decade. Now Extra Strength Tylenol is going to get a new lid, according to the company producing this pain reliever. This is in response to the more than 85 personal injury and wrongful death lawsuits that have been filed against the company. The bottle cap will have a red-lettered label that reads: "Contains Acetaminophen", and below this "Always Read the Label".

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, about 55,000 to 80,000 go to the emergency room every year because of acetaminophen overdose, 500 of whom die. About half of these overdoses are deemed accidental; most of these overdoses stemming from prescription drugs such as Percocet and Vicodin. Just these two drugs were prescribed over 173 million times in 2012. With an overdose, toxins are produced that kill the liver, eventually causing it to fail. The patient then needs a transplant within 24 or 48 hours in order to live.

This active ingredient is a component in over 600 pain medications, which almost a quarter of all adults will use on a weekly basis in the United States. These medicines include Nyquil cold formula, Excedrin tablets, and Sudafed sinus pills. Tylenol will be the only medication with the newly stamped bottle cap.

How can you overdose? Perhaps you are prescribed a pain killer, just within the safety regulations. This is not quite enough, so you take doses of Extra Strength Tylenol too. Then the pain is gone, but you can't sleep, so you add doses of Nyquil to your regimen. It will only take hours before there is the chance of severe liver damage.

The good news is that as long as people follow the directions, they should be fine. This is the general consensus among experts. This means taking no more than 8 pills of Extra Strength Tylenol in a day. The problem is how easy it can be to unwittingly take an overdose. Some blame the fact that there are as much as hundreds of pills in each bottle, making it simple to reach for more whenever someone feels the need. Some Extra Strength Tylenol bottles have 325 tablets in them.

While only less than 1 percent of the 100 million acetaminophen users will suffer liver damage, specialists say that every one of those cases could have been prevented. The thing is, people have known the potential dangers of acetaminophen since the 1990s. Back in 1994, a lawsuit was filed on behalf of a man who lapsed into a coma and had to have an emergency liver transplant when he took Tylenol and drank wine. The lawsuit resulted in an $8.8 million jury award because of the lack of warnings. This caused the FDA to mandate warning labels that included the caution that pain relievers cannot be mixed with alcohol. In 2009, the FDA ordered that all companies include warnings on the label that liver damage could result if people did not follow instructions. The FDA has also recommended a lesser recommended daily dose for Extra Strength Tylenol, which has been followed. Tylenol has not followed the recommendation to stop producing Extra Strength doses altogether. The company claims that this would simply cause people to go for more doses of pain relievers.

Do the recommended doses need to be lowered? Are people really following directions? Of the lawsuits over Tylenol, every single one claims that the victims had followed the bottle's directions. The debates over the safety of acetaminophen and the responsibility of its takers is underway. If you think you might be entitled to compensation for a dangerous drug, talk to a personal injury lawyer to today.