The Food and Drug Administration assembled 37 experts to recommend ways to reduce deadly overdoses with acetaminophen, which is the leading cause of liver failure in the U.S. and sends 56,000 people to the emergency room annually. About 200 die each year.

"We're here because there are inadvertent overdoses with this drug that are fatal and this is the one opportunity we have to do something that will have a big impact," said Dr. Judith Kramer of Duke University Medical Center.

The experts narrowly ruled that prescription drugs that combine acetaminophen with other painkilling ingredients should be eliminated. They cited FDA data indicating that 60 percent of acetaminophen-related deaths are related to prescription products.