So even though there's a warning on the back, there needs to be a warning on the front too?

Maybe they'll have another recall next month because there isn't a warning on the side or the bottom.

/confused

"There is less than 1 percent alcohol in the flavoring, and this information is on the back of the bottles," company spokeswoman Bonnie Jacobs said.

Important information for alcoholics....

Prober after you take a few tylenol it starts to make perfect sense.

rixar, at 1% of the flavoring, you would have to take an utterly fatal dose of tylenol to even have realized that any alcohol was ever there. in fact, your stomach would probably explode from the quantity of tylenol you would have to consume in order to get even the slightest bit inebriated.

that's the flavoring, which is already a minute portion of the whole.

to recall 9 million bottles over something utterly unnoticable is ridiculous.

For God's sake, have we gone totally insane?

One industry that you want meticulously double checking every detail of what they produce are those that put stuff in your body.

You don't seem to mind a pill manufacturer that skips a deatail every once in a while, no matter what stage of the process? Making sure the printing is correct out of the thousands of chemical processes done is asking too much?

I'm glad I'm not your child with a cold.

maybe you should read the whole bottle and not just the front!?!

Fred; It isn't in the chemical process it's in the labeling. If you read and comprehended the article you'd know that. The warning IS on the back of the bottle.

I'm glad your not my kid, I'd hate to think I raised an illiterate neurotic.

PERHAPS IF PEOPLE WEREN’T SO QUICK TO TRY TO SUE COMPANIES TO MAKE A QUICK UNEARNED DOLLAR IT WOULDN’T BE AN ISSUE. People winning lawsuits over coffee being too hot and other ridiculous things have forced companies to cover themselves for everything. People aren’t held responsible for taking a combination cold medication with Tylenol and then taking Tylenol on top of that and overdosing, it is all Tylenol’s fault for not doing enough to protect people from themselves. It’s just sad. Let people take double the medication, ride without seatbelts and ride without helmets. Survival of the fittest the gene pool will improve.

Personally, I think this is a bit of a ticky-tack recall, at least compared to some others recently. But it IS an oral medicine, and correct labeling on ALL the labels of a medicine is of utmost importance. The front label does the selling, the back is for fine print and instructions. Alcohol shouldn't even be in there AT ALL, if you ask me. If it's so unnoticeable, then why add it? Lots of pills are "flavored" without the need for alcohol. Why not Tylenol?

We should have the right to be able to consider a product in a store and easily learn if alcohol is present, without having to read the fine print on the back, especially since some people are actually allergic to alcohol (thank God I'm not one of them) or have religious reasons for avoiding it. That's why I think it's strange that they are making the blanket statement that consumers should just go ahead and use the product if it's already been purchased. That may be true in 99.9% of the cases, but not EVERY case. It's a bit unusual, to say the least.

Your liver would fail before you ingested enough Tylenol to get drunk... that's what Tylenol ODs cause.

Its not pills that are flavored with alcohol, its the liquid cold medicine. Most liquid cold medicines you buy have alcohol and most people know that. If someone is allergic to alcohol they should know that and read the label to find out if it has alcohol in it. People are allergic to all kinds of stuff. They dont put anything someone might be allergic in big letters on the front of the label. They dont even do that for peanut allergies or wheat allergies. Im allergic to sodium laureth sulfate. I have never seen a label that said on the front it contained that ingredient. Ive also never seen it separated as an "allergy information" section like stuff that has peanuts, wheat, milk, etc. If you are allergic to something then read the ingredient label. Not that hard. As for religious reasons, they are not allowed to drink alcohol because they are not allowed to get drunk. You cant get drunk off of cold medicine. You would OD before you got that far. Do they people who are not allowed to drink it avoid vanilla? Vanilla flavoring has alcohol, so does mouthwash.

I was wondering how much alcohol could actually be in the pills and kept coming up with "not very much at all", but the article changed on me and specified the liquid, when at first it said NOT the liquid. it makes more sense now that the editors corrected it.

and I know that several have a fairly considerable amount of alcohol in them (I think nyquil has or had about 10-20% alcohol). but they are talking about tiny amounts in the flavoring, and not as a main ingredient.

We live in a paranoid, litigious, neurotic, irresponsible for their own actions society. I'm glad I'm as old as I am and can remember happier more self responsibe times.

If you have a condition or are concerned it's your responsibility to read the ingredients, the expiration date, and country of origin. Read, or are you one of those that fell though the educational crack?

I'm with Jo and Christie -

Who can read the labels on these products anyway?! The print is microscopic and not readable without a microscope or, at least, a magnifying glass. Jeesh!

Dave, they must be making the print smaller, ten years ago I never used to have any problem reading the fine print...

:)

This really is all about the fear that lawsuits have brought on to, well... pretty much everybody.

One listing of an ingredient? Not good enough, some free loader will sue. It seems the largest percentage of posters above have pointed out legitimate, similar points; common sense, responsibility, the 3 R's... educate ourselves.

There's always a middle of the road; some of the meds out are dangerous, and most would, once educated about them, avoid them if possible. Yet, when watching commercials or reading magazines, because of ALL possible side effects and the lawsuits, it's easy to be afraid of taking darn near any, even necessary, life saving ones.

It does come down to tort reform, personal responsibility and research.

Prober

Looking to make sense of this? Talk to the folks who make and market Tylenol.

See:

http://health.newsvine.com/_news/2010/11/24/5522052-9-million-bottles-of-tylenol-recalled-by-johnson-johnson?threadId=1141218&commentId=19704935#c19704935

I can't wait for the Malibu Rum flavored ones.....

There wouldn't even be a recall if the person in charge of quality control had simply done their job properly. Probably a union employee asleep in the back room.

And with that this country sinks lower into the sh*t hole it is becoming. Looks like people have become so stupid they need a label for everything.

Yes it does, How else can employees justify their pay check.

That is an interesting question and I hope someone posts the answer. I do not think so, I believe alcohol to be a man made substance. This could be a "teachable moment" for me so I look forward to the response.

Alcohol comes from fermentaion of organic matter. We all have a level of blood alcohols in our systems from the food we eat. Do you really think "man made" is bad. Are we all just "carbon infestations" on the planet? Think man should disappear? If so, you first.

I never said it was bad at all. In fact I wasn't sure and I said so.

oh and if you want to look this up you can... which is the answer to the first question.

The human body does not produce alcohol. Alcohol is created by yeast feeding on sugars.

Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Why_do_our_bodies_produce_alcohol#ixzz16ESu7ESt

Almost everything in your body comes from or relies on some micro organism to function. The mitochondria in all of our cells are thought to be bacteria that our cells incorporated into themselves a long time ago. Bacteria play the main role in breaking down the food we eat, their by products are our nutrients. So the fact that bacteria in our body produce alcohol means that the answer is yes, we do produce alcohol naturally.

Doesn't the human body produce a small amount of alcohol in our systems naturally?

The presence of alcohol in human specimens containing glucose and yeast should come as no surprise. Several have made this observation. Under normal circumstances trace amounts of alcohol may be found in the blood; the alcohol is then channeled into an energy pathway by hepatic alcohol dehydrogenase.

The Japanese report the auto brewery syndrome in which they have seen middle aged patients with bowel abnormalities, most often after surgery, who have yeast overgrowth, usually candida, in the G.I. tract and who ferment ingested carbohydrates, producing enough alcohol to result in drunkeness.’ Mullholland and Townsend, ‘Bladder Beer ‘ A New Clinical Observation’, 95 Transactions of the American Clinical Climatological Association 34.

In other words, the body is manufacturing alcohol by itself ‘ in some cases, enough to become legally intoxicated. This has been confirmed by other studies.

http://duicoloradolaw.com/does-your-body-produce-alcohol-naturally/

The human body does NOT produce any alcohol "naturally". Certain human diets CAN. When that happens in most of us, it's not a big deal, we don't even realize it. In other people, it could be considered a condition, like in the cases from Japan mentioned above. Some people are even allergic to certain types of alcohol and must eat a proper diet to avoid internal manufacture of it. Those people might be a tad bit concerned about mislabeled Tylenol, although most of them probably know to avoid it by now.

no it does not produce it

I'm with Jo and Christie too. What a complete waste of money.

Fred -- responsible parents would read the bottle carefully for dosing instructions and would see the label on the back where the alcohol content was listed. It's 1% or less. Really a non-issue, even for a significantly impaired child. The company is just trying to avoid some frivolous lawsuit from someone who would inevitably try to sue and make a few million bucks.

If the product is mislabeled it is mislabeled. The recall is totally called for. You can't have different rules for each situation.

It isn't mislabeled. It says there is alcohol in it. Someone decided that it should say so on the front. It isnt required to be there. I dont see why it should considering the minute amount of alcohol in it

can you imagine the total uproar if Tylenol contained even 'a tiny bit' of marijuana?

Uproar? More like "Black Friday". You couldn't restock the shelves fast enough.

mtpromises - if you're worried about that tiny bit of alcohol dont ingest cold meds or vanilla, also dont use mouthwash...

Private industry does a good enough job of harming themselves, and consumers, through illegal and fraudulent practices.

The government does much more harm by their illegal and fraudulent practices!

The government does much more harm by their illegal and fraudulent practices!

LOL, owned Sichuan.

did the government order the recall? or did J&J decide that they wanted to do this themselves? perhaps to mollify those that have religious prohibitions against alcohol

the article didn't say either way

This would be a voluntary recall. According to business week:

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-11-24/j-j-recalls-tylenol-cold-drugs-over-alcohol-labeling.html

This is not government mandated. Actually, it is rather ethical of J&J/Tylenol of taking the necessary steps to keep their customers informed.

Thank you all for beating me to the punch and pointing out this is not some example of government or Big Brother trying to "keep the man down" or some such nonesense. Companies run voluntary recalls like this to protect themselves against lawsuits from consumers -- not out of fear of the government. Get a grip, people. If you have a problem with this, blame your fellow American citizens who are happy to sue anyone and everyone they think they can squeeze a buck out of. And, yes, I say blame the people -- not just the lawyers.

PERHAPS IF PEOPLE WEREN'T SO QUICK TO TRY TO SUE COMPANIES TO MAKE A QUICK UNEARNED DOLLAR IT WOULDN'T BE AN ISSUE. People winning lawsuits over coffee being too hot and other ridiculous things have forced companies to cover themselves for everything. People aren't held responsible for taking a combination cold medication with Tylenol and then taking Tylenol on top of that and overdosing, it is all Tylenol's fault for not doing enough to protect people from themselves. It's just sad. Let people take double the medication, ride without seatbelts and ride without helmets. Survival of the fittest, the gene pool will improve.

yes christie, some of these lawsuits are ridiculous, but you know those ones that you get in e-mails that really rile you up?

most of those never happened, they were just made up for the purpose of getting you riled up.

like the so-called "rv autopilot " lawsuit where the guy set the cruise control and got up to make coffee. when the RV drove off the road, he sued and won 2 million dollars because the manual didn't say it wasn't an autopilot. that never happened, but I still see the e-mail floating around

blankname

RugbyRyan is spot on here.

see:

http://health.newsvine.com/_news/2010/11/24/5522052-9-million-bottles-of-tylenol-recalled-by-johnson-johnson?threadId=1141218&commentId=19704935#c19704935

danwill

I’m aware of facts versus propaganda. I don’t buy into propaganda, nor do I spread it around.

the alcohol is 1% of the flavoring (per article) and being in a tablet , I would think that any alcohol would have evaporated from a dry product by the time it was used. unless you got it right from the factory.

Actually, danwill, it is in the liquid product (per article), not tablets. Why would tablets need a flvoring, anyway?

even at 1% of the flavoring of the liquid, the flavoring is still a tiny portion of the total. you still couldn't possibly get even the least bit drunk on the stuff without killing yourself from the active ingredients.

but I somehow missed the part where it said liquid, my bad.

This one wasn't a quality of the product issue. It was a quality of the packaging issue. Someone forgot to leave the fact that the medicine contained alcohol off of the front label. Doesn't matter to me personally, because I always buy generic acetaminophen manufactured by a different company than J &J. It has the same active ingredients and costs about half of the name brand stuff.

"How can I find this information out?"

www.mcneilproductrecall.com

Just curious if you are really going to return the bottle?

Who is in control? The greedy corporations that we keep supporting when we buy their crap.

Actually I believe now the theory is that you shouldn't be giving any sort of cold medication to children (not just cough syrup). If your cold's that bad stay at home in bed instead of going out in public and sharing with everyone.

I agree. AMEN to that.

Considering how many lawsuit-happy people there are in this world - or at least in this country - J&J and the FDA are doing an intelligent thing by recalling those bottles of Tylenol.

I mean, if someone who put a cup of hot coffee between her legs as she was driving can sue a fast-food restaurant for failing to have "Contents are hot" printed on their hot coffee cups - and win! - it wouldn't take too long for someone to sue J&J for inadequate warnings on their products.

Linda...in the case of the woman that sued McDonald's because of the coffee being too hot-she WASN'T driving. I just learned that a few months ago after someone pointing it out in a similar comment section. Check it out on wikipedia...she was the passenger and the car was not moving when it spilled as she was taking the lid off the cup.

Western:

No, this is not the FDA at work here:

See:

http://www.tylenol.com/page2.jhtml?id=tylenol/news/subp_tylenol_recall_5.inc

While Johnson & Johnson, and it subsidiary McNeil Laboratories, makers and marketers of the Tylenol product line did consult with the FDA:

McNeil Consumer Healthcare initiated the recall after an internal review...

As stated on the company's web page hyperlinked above.

You got to be kidding! Like that little bit of alcohol would make a difference. I have heard it all now!

I ingested Tylenol for a cold, now I have relapsed! Oh dear get me to an AA meeting!

Are there duck people also buying it?

No, they're too chicken.

No, it's part of the ingredients used to make the flavoring. Maybe try reading first, then talking.

J&J is recalling bottles of 3 different Tylenol Multi-Symptom liquid products in which alcohol is one of the ingredients used in flavoring.

Your more likely to pop on a test for eating a sandwich 15min before you do the test then drinking the less than 1% alcohol in cold medicine. Also most cold meds do have alcohol in them and the ones that do ALL (including Tylenol) say so in the ingredients section (on the back where it is required to be)

Why should J&J work on our country's safety, social security, etc.?

They issued a voluntary recall. They went after themselves. Nobody but themselves forced them to recall. I could go on and on.

Thankful.

Sorry.

No goverment boogey-persons to go after here, see:

http://health.newsvine.com/_news/2010/11/24/5522052-9-million-bottles-of-tylenol-recalled-by-johnson-johnson?threadId=1141218&commentId=19704935#c19704935

Most of us would be smart enough to read both the back and front labels on a bottle, ung, but, from what I've read and seen over the years, there are enough of us out there who need to be saved from ourselves.

Hence, the recall.

"Are we so stupid that we can't turn a bottle around?"

Are you kidding? Do you know how heavy those bottles are?

Are you kidding? Do you know how heavy those bottles are?

really, some can be as much as 12 ounces!