The tragic death of Baildon pensioner Mrs Molly Cripps, who took an accidental overdose of paracetamol by combining a proprietary cold treatment with painkillers, is a grim lesson in just how potentially dangerous everyday products can be if inadvertently misused.

Mrs Cripps, who was already taking eight paracetamol tablets a day to help the pain of an amputated leg, also took about six Lemsip Max tablets a day for about a week when she went down with a cold, apparently unaware that they too contained paracetamol. As a result, she died of multiple organ failure.

She is certainly not the first person to suffer this fate through proprietary products. There is a warning on the Lemsip Max packet not to take treatment with any other tablets containing paracetamol, but as Bradford deputy coroner Mark Hinchcliffe points out the warning was on the back of the box in print too small for Mrs Cripps to see.

He is right to want the risk made plainer. Because so many proprietary treatments are so easily available, over the counter at chemists and from the supermarket shelves, many people do not realise how potent the drugs in them can be if misused.

A treatment like Lemsip Max, which is perfectly safe if used correctly to clear the nose and ease a headache, can become potentially lethal if taken at the same time as another treatment containing the same drug.

While Mr Hinchcliffe correctly stresses that he makes no criticism of anybody, his recommendation to the manufacturers that they make even greater efforts to draw the potential risks to the attention of the public is a sensible one.