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Acetaminophen is also known as paracetamol and by the brand name Tylenol. It is used as a pain reliever and fever reducer and is often bundled into other medications. It has been in the news the last few years because of the risk of overdose and liver damage, and a lot of combination children's medicines that include it have been removed from the market because of the risk that parents may not understand and may overdose the child with the combination medicine and a separate dose of acetaminophen.
the researchers discovered that a mother using acetaminophen at 18 weeks of pregnancy was associated with a greater chance of her child becoming hyperactive or developing conduct problems. At 32 weeks into pregnancy, a mother's use of acetaminophen was linked to higher odds of her child having emotional symptoms, conduct problems and hyperactivity symptoms.
"It is important to note there are no studies demonstrating a causal link between acetaminophen use during pregnancy and adverse effects on child development," said Marc Boston, a spokesman for McNeil Consumer Healthcare, the maker of Tylenol.
Acetaminophen has long been considered safe for use during pregnancy.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Absolutely.Geek on Thursday August 18 2016, @12:29AM
The dosage and frequency of medication was not reported and the parents are giving an assessment of the behaviour of the children. I will wait for more evidence to show up with some better data before drawing conclusions. However this is an important first step to finding a link if one does exist.
Paracetamol is one of the lowest risk pain relievers available; it is taken by millions of people world wide and has a very low cost.
Don't trust the police or the government - Shihad: My mind's sedate.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Thursday August 18 2016, @12:48AM
Low risk on a medicine with no medicinal value is still an unacceptable risk.
As it stands, acetaminophen doesn't actually work for headaches or pain. I'm skeptical that it does anything other than up your risk for liver failure.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 18 2016, @12:54AM
All righty then, let's ban all medicine and make all street drugs legal. That oughta appease you whiny jerks.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Thursday August 18 2016, @01:32AM
I'm not suggesting that we ban all medicines, most medicines do actually work for their intended use.
The problem is when medications like aspirin and acetaminophen effectively get grandfathered in despite their serious health consequences. And the cases where they're treating something that would be more effectively treated with proper of diet and exercise.
Not to mention entire classes of medication like the various antidepressants that are only intended for short term work in conjunction with proper care from a qualified therapist or psychologist.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 18 2016, @02:15AM
The juxtaposition of the story about medical pot is timely. Are OTC drugs held to higher standards than pot? The long term effects of pot are still unknown, yet pot is already legal in several states and is on the ballot to be legal in many more. The FDC has no jurisdiction over pot, and if troubling studies come in (there already have been some, but others have contradicted the findings), there is little political likelihood that legalization will be reversed.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Runaway1956 on Thursday August 18 2016, @02:29AM
Pot being "legal" is a far cry from the status of prescription drugs which are routinely pushed by deep-pockets corporations.
While it is true that dozens, maybe hundreds, of smaller corporations and businesses stand to make money off of pot, Monsanto isn't going to make billions off of pot. Smith-Klein doesn't stand to create an empire with pot. In fact, many of the huge corporations are losing money with the legalization of pot. I've read a couple of articles which cite decreased usage of pain meds in the states which have legalized pot. Potentially, a person can cultivate a couple of plants in their own garden, process them, and keep a stash of their own, at almost no cost. No one is cooking their own acetiminophen in their home kitchen.
Side benefit for taxpayers, Medicaid is saving money in states where pot is legal.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 18 2016, @02:37AM
Yeah, but the bigger issue is public safety, not profits that corporations might or might not make. I doubt that TV ads for Tylenol (which fewer and fewer people even see nowadays) can stack up against social pressure to smoke weed at parties or on dates, that many teens and young adults experience.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday August 18 2016, @01:52PM
In that context you should be comparing it to alcohol - which is already legal in all 50 states and well known to be *extremely* dangerous when used irresponsibly - far more so than cannabis, which has not yet been shown to have any serious risks even at extreme exposures, despite decades of attempts to find or manufacture such evidence.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 18 2016, @03:02PM
That's a fair comparison, but it has already been proven that alcohol use is so customary within society (except for certain places like Utah) that a prohibition is completely impractical. Once a right has been given, and used for many generations, it is tough to take it away.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday August 18 2016, @05:50PM
I would argue that the overwhelming failure of the "Drug War", despite the massive resources allocated to it, and appalling militarization of the police force and abridgment of the rights of everyday citizens performed in its name, suggests that prohibition is completely impractical regardless of whether the particular substance in question previously enjoyed widespread social acceptance or not.
Archaeology suggests that humanity has embraced mind-altering substances of many stripes since long before records were kept. It seems unlikely that anything will substantially curb that tendency, and even we could it's not clear that there's any real benefit to doing so, except for those whose benefit from an invasive erosion of personal liberties.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by sjames on Thursday August 18 2016, @03:17AM
In many ways, it's the opposite. We allow an OTC drug known to cause liver damage (with a non-zero death toll) if the recommended dose is exceeded, but we question even prescription use of a drug that really doesn't have a toxic dose (though some find an overdose to feel quite unpleasant).
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday August 18 2016, @07:08PM
Acetaminophen doesn't work for me either, but for many people it apparently does. You can't assume that just because a drug doesn't work for you it doesn't work for anyone, people's internal chemistries are different.
For me the most effective NSAID is aspirin. Unfortunately it also tends to cause nose bleeds (which means it makes me more likely to get one of the kinds of stroke). So I use ibuprofen. It doesn't work quite as well, but so far it doesn't seem to cause many problems at the dosage I take.
The real problem is that there *IS* no decent pain killer. NONE. They all are either minimally effective or have undesired side effects. (Sometimes some of the effects are pleasant, but when what you're after is a pain killer, any side effect is undesirable...even were it something as minor as making it easy to tan.) As I get older I wish increasingly that there WERE a decent pain killer, but wishes aren't reality...so I either tough it out or use ibuprofen of alcohol. (Alcohol tends to slightly increase inflammation, so it's generally a poor choice except for extremely sporadic occasions, or where one wants one of the side effects.)
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 1) by Francis on Thursday August 18 2016, @09:05PM
So do sugar pills, but unlike sugar pills, acetaminophen kills thousands every year.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Thursday August 18 2016, @02:44AM
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 18 2016, @09:11AM
Very true; it might even be that mothers who tend to use pain killers during pregnancy just have behavioral habits that end up in them raising hyperactive kids. How does one ethically test that hypothesis?
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Thursday August 18 2016, @02:04PM
>How does one ethically test that hypothesis?
Easy - ask mothers who have used acetaminophen during past pregnancies to refrain from using it and closely related drugs during future pregnancies. Heck ask them to alternate with each kid. Whether they use other painkillers with similarly low known risk, or refrain entirely, you still get considerable information about the relative risks of the alternatives.
The trick to conducting even potentially appalling research ethically, is to seek out subject whose uninfluenced behavior would be to do the potentially risky thing you want to test, and then convince some of them to refrain for the sake of your research. Not always a viable option, but when available the net effect is to reduce the level of potentially risky behavior among your test subjects.