A panel of experts has recommended that the FDA should ban the prescription painkillers Vicodin and Percocet, and that the “safe maximal” dose of Tylenol be reduced significantly.

The panel voted 20 to 17 to ban on the 2 narcotic-acetaminophen combo drugs.

It also recommended that extra-strength Tylenol be made available by prescription only, and that dosing recommendations for children’s Tylenol be reexamined.

The problem with all of them, according to the panel, is acetaminophen, which has long-since been linked to liver damage.

The group recommended that the FDA “send a clear message that there’s a high likelihood of overdose from prescription narcotics and acetaminophen products,” Sandra Kweder of the FDA’s Office of New Drugs said at a press conference.

Acetaminophen overdoses prompted 56,000 emergency room visits, 26,000 hospitalizations and 458 deaths in the 1990s, the FDA reported.  It is also, according to the CDC, by far the most common cause of acute liver failure, which strikes about 1,600 people each year.

Acetaminophen is also found in NyQuil, Pamprin, Allerest and dozens of other OTC remedies for colds and flu, headache, menstrual symptoms, allergies, insomnia, arthritis and other minor ailments.

The panel decided against recommending a ban on OTC drugs containing acetaminophen, since they cause less than 10% of all overdoses with this drug.

Abbott Laboratory’s Vicodin and its generic congeners are the most frequently prescribed drugs in the US, according to IMS Health. Nearly 124 million prescriptions were written for the juice last year alone.

The FDA is not required to follow the recommendations of its panels, though it usually does.

Research suggests that violent video games promote aggressive thoughts, and probably, violence itself. The thing is, not all video games are violent. In fact some actually reward socially constructive behavior like sharing things or saving the planet.

Could these so-called “pro-social” video games foster salutary behavior in players?

Two recent studies suggest the answer might be yes.

In the first, Iowa State’s Douglas Gentile, a noted video-game researcher, and his colleagues asked 161 students to play one of 6 games for 20 minutes. Some were assigned Ty2 or Crash Twinsanity, which feature wall-to-wall violence.

Others were told to play Chibi-Rob!, in which players help video characters with chores, or Super Mario Sunshine, in which participants erase graffiti and eliminate pollution. A control group got to play neutral maze games like Pure Pinball and Super Monkey Ball Deluxe.

After the session, the scientists asked participants to select from a smorgasbord of easy, medium and hard puzzles that a partner would complete, and told them the partner would receive a gift upon their successful completion.

Students assigned to the pro-social games were more likely to select easy puzzles for the partner, while those assigned violent games selected the more difficult puzzles.

In the second experiment, Tobias Greitemeyer and colleagues from the University of Sussex asked 46 students to play either Lemmings, a pro-social game, or Tetris, a neutral control.

After the session, the scientists asked students to complete story lines such as what happens after a driver nearly collides with a bicyclist. Lemmings players proposed endings characterized by fewer aggressive thoughts, responses and actions than Tetris players.

Alas, the medium is rarely the message. Both write-ups will be published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.