Acute intoxication and illness due to mild analgesics

1 Acute intoxication with mild analgesics is relatively uncommon in France. In fact, these drugs have accounted for only about 3.5% of acute drug intoxications seen at the Fernand Widal Hospital, Paris, over the past 10 years. 2 On the other hand, 23% of adverse reactions recorded by a drug monitoring service have been attributed to mild analgesics. 3 It is very difficult to establish the true incidence of acute toxicity and adverse reactions caused by these drugs. They are usually taken without medical supervision; it is often difficult to ascribe toxicity to a single agent when combination products are taken so frequently; and the underlying illness and the use of other drugs must also be considered. 4 The methods currently used to obtain adverse reaction and toxicity data have many disadvantages and shortcomings.