An advisory panel to the Food and Drug Administration recommended a ban on Percocet and Vicoden because of their effects on the liver.

Obviously, the members of the panel have never had to live with day-in-and-day-out severe pain. The kind of pain that aspirin or tylenol cannot touch.

Don't tell people in pain to "tough it out" when their lives center around pain every minute of the day. When it hurts so bad, you can hardly breathe.

They should be able to choose whether or not to live with pain or risk liver damage. Their bodies, after all, not those of some medical advisory persons.