If RFK Jr says it's true, that's how I know it isn't. They go to great lengths to point out they're "using gold-standard science", which also makes me certain they aren't. They can't be, because none of this is about autism or science, it's about pushing their political agenda.
Judging from the comments I've seen, nobody believes this because RFK has completely shot his credibility, and I don't blame them either.
But it turns out there may actually be some emerging evidence to support this. This recent Harvard meta-analysis [1] from just last month looked at 46 different studies and suggested that there may actually be something happening here although it's not conclusive. Correlation but not yet causation.
Nobody should be making policy on this yet, but it's the kind of thing that I would allocate some research dollars to if I hadn't just fired all of the competent researchers.
> Further, a potential causal relationship is consistent with temporal trends—as acetaminophen has become the recommended pain reliever for pregnant mothers, the rates of ADHD and ASD have increased > 20-fold over the past decades
I do not have at all the right background to evaluate this research so treat this opinion for what it's worth, but it seems incautious for the authors to close with this note near the end. People like RFK are looking for an explanation for that 20-fold increase. But the hazard ratios in the studies with positive results seem to be along the lines of 1.05-1.20. They do also note changes in diagnosis criteria before this sentence, but it still seems like if they're going to mention a 20-fold increase, they should be even more explicit that any association with increased Tylenol use could only ever explain a very small part of that.
Maybe we should. We're talking about pregnant women and autism, along with taking a different painkiller. And if the theory is wrong, it'll only take a few years to find out, presumably.
For people who don't have children: most medical advice regarding pregnant women and infants is overwhelmingly cautious and errs on the side of, "if we don't have enough studies confirming it's 100% safe, it's better to stick to the less questionably safe way." I'm not sure why this would be any different.
> Judging from the comments I've seen, nobody believes this because RFK has completely shot his credibility, and I don't blame them either.
All you’re stating is that you’ve found an echo chamber - which is true of Hacker News (and Reddit, and BlueSky). It’s also true of TruthSocial. I guess my annoyance is that this is Hacker news not DNC news - and as such, I’d hope for more than one (or even two!) perspectives.
I don’t think RFK has shot his credibility - even if he did withdraw from the DNC on October 9, 2023, less than two years ago. His perspective seems stable 20 years on after he wrote “Deadly Immunity” in 2005.
If you think he lost credibility, it wasn’t recent.
> Nobody should be making policy on this yet, but it's the kind of thing that I would allocate some research dollars to if I hadn't just fired all of the competent researchers.
Yes but that is the whole RFK brand. He and his supporters always try to have their cake and eat it too. Claim something, things go wrong and blame others for misconstruing RFK's comments.
The way this is going - RFK is going to make claims based on this paper and when people get harmed, he and his supporters will claim that people who followed RFK's assertion didn't hear him correctly. He clearly said the policy was based on this paper and people should have done more research and read this paper. See this paper says there is correlation and not causation. So, you cannot blame RFK for this mishap.
Not specific to tylenol and autism, but I think important: RFK Jr. will be issuing findings using "gold-standard science" and hold up the findings as definitive (as proof, etc.) at the same time that he completely minimizes and bemoans current scientific processes. While we may be able to tell the difference between RFK's BS science and real science, what does this mean for everyone else? Especially because RFK Jr. does not trust science?
It’s insane that the RFK crowd continues to not consider that the increase is just due to better diagnoses.
I wouldn’t entirely rule out there being environmental factors, but from the data I could gather it seems that acetaminophen usage has decreased in pregnancy over the last several decades in the US, while autism has increased.
This all seems to go back to the boomer generation believing the world was simpler when they grew up and that it was somehow ruined. That may be true about some things but the reality of their generation is they had no idea what people were going through, and didn’t have the language to describe it
Tylenol was introduced in 1955. Autism was first scientifically documented in 1926. If Tylenol causes autism, how did those parents in the 1920s get their hands on it?
Also, wouldn't there been a clear link between Tylenol sales and the occurrence of autism? Where is the data showing that the adoption of Tylenol in the 1960s resulted in a rise in autism, and that the "rise" of autism in the 1990s is linked to an increase in Tylenol use?
Someone needs to find a new brain worm for the heroin junkie who dabbled in environmental law that gets him doing the right thing™ like:
- going after quacks who promote bleach, horse dewormers (maybe that's the problem), and raw milk
- adopt the precautionary principle
- approve EU sunscreen compounds without animal testing and banning reef/human unsafe ones
- leave science to scientists
- increase regulatory oversight over food manufacturing, additive, and supply chain regulation so there aren't canyons of non-enforcement or exclusions between FDA and USDA
Or, maybe, this is really radical... find someone else competent to do the job.
I remember an old study linking ultrasounds to lefthandedness. It was legit. Families with access to ultrasounds lived in countries/areas where lefthandedness was more culturally accepted, places where it was not drilled out of kids. The study was correct, but anyone touting it as causation was totally incorrect.
Fyi, sharks are way more likely to attack people with australian accents. Never go swimming with an auzzi.
I considered that when the news hit but didn't. Even if there's nothing to the report and it's forgotten in a week, that sound you heard Friday was tens of thousands of trail lawyers jizzing in their pants. $1.8 billion powerball ain't got nothing on the payday they're looking at.
Good time to buy. While the cult might take this to heart and stop using Tylenol alltogether, there will be lawsuits to protect the brand and the company, and considering the lack of proof, in the end they will suceed.
The entire medical community is doing their impression of Shaggy, i.e. "it wasn't me!" But there are thousands of suffering parents and children and this lack of empathy really does nothing for no one. Another hand-wavy response I have heard is that given the new Autism Spectrum diagnosis, many more kids are now diagnosed with autism. That being said, none has even come up with a reasonably derived estimate saying that of the 5X increase in autism over the last 25 years, we can confidently say that nX of this is due to changing diagnosis standards. And if n is anything less than 5, the medical community has work to do in solving this problem and not passing the blame and accusing suffering parents of being crazy.
No one supporting this quack's actions and opinions has any right to claim that the people devoting their lives to understanding, managing and healing illnesses, are the ones lacking empathy and not the ones doing their best to make healthcare less accessible, discrediting and shutting down any research that doesn't support their biases and irresponsibly spreading misinformation.
Was replying to a commented which was downvoted to death entirely unfairly, so I'll paste my reply as a new comment:
Paracetamol/acetaminophen (the active ingredient in tylenol) is super toxic to the liver. Lots of people overdose on it, some by accident and some deliberately. As little as FOUR GRAMS can cause jaundice and fuck up your liver. If you have a fever, taking 1 gram every couple of hours might seem entirely reasonable, but it can kill you.
Regardless of any autism links, it's good to be careful with this stuff.
Why are doctors telling women that it's okay to take Tylenol during pregnancy in the first place? Everything they put in their bodies can have an effect on the baby so medication for pregnant mothers should be severely limited. Why haven't we learned from the Thalidomide scandal?
Tylenol only helps for minor aches and pains that frankly, pregnant mothers should just deal with for the good of their unborn child. The risk is not worth it.
RFK Jr. isn't right on everything, but he's not wrong on everything either and it's refreshing seeing someone head HHS that isn't in big pharma's pocket for a change.
It is the safest painkiller currently available. Ibuprofen can cause gut bleeding and renal issues if overdosed on. We all know about opiates.
Some facts - typical adult dose is 1g. Max suggested cap on the drug label is 3g per day (about 6 pills at usual 500mg dose). You need to take 10g (20 pills) to be at real risk of hepatotoxicity.
So 10 times the typical dose is when you have overdose effects. (basically 20 pills per day vs 2 pills per day).
Not your "wildly unsafe at slightly above usage levels" AT ALL (as someone posted on here)
This is not harmless - this might cause someone to take more dangerous painkillers when acetaminophen (tylenol) might have safely helped them. The autism stuff is plainly false and disproved.
My mom gave me one 325 mg aspirin dissolved in a spoon of water and a little sugar as a tot - it was tasty!
I took the typical two 325 mg aspirin for headache thru college and grad school.
Years later I had a cracked rib and was prescribed 800 mg ibufprofen twice daily. The rib pain vanished for the duration (and my swim times improved significantly)! I became a convert to Advil.
Years later I'm older and minimize my painkillers - most of the time I take nothing but coffee. But if sudden brain pain strikes I take either baby aspirin, ibuprofen, or "Headache Relief", a witches' brew sold by many vendors (typically ~250 mg acetaminophen, 250 mg aspirin and caffeine). So I'm hedging my bets!
If I must use something every day then I use baby aspirin (if worried about heart/circulatory issues) or ibuprofen (if worried about pain). When I need to think clearly (most the time) I avoid acetaminophen.
IMHO people overestimate the "gut bleeding" risk from NSAIDS.
No, I do not think we do, because it causes none of the side-effects associated with NSAIDs, and it is even safer than acetaminophen, i.e. there is no risk of hepatotoxicity whatsoever. The only side-effect is euphoria. Please do not mention respiratory depression here, that is a non-issue, it matters as so much as liver failure matters with acetaminophen overdoses. Opiates are safer than any painkillers currently in existence, the problem is with impure products (i.e. not from the pharmacy), and people misusing / abusing them. They might as well abuse NSAIDs and acetaminophen, and the result is the same: harm. Taken therapeutically though, it is way safer than any other painkillers.
So I am not sure what your intention was with that sentence, because sadly no, people do not realize the therapeutic safety profile.
Tramadol is a nasty atypical opioid though, you could have singled that one out. It affects almost all receptors (serotonin, dopamine, etc.) there is, and it is one of the nastiest opioids out there, but that is why it is called an "atypical" opioid.
Edit: I missed constipation as a side-effect, see my other comment.
There is a “better” painkiller than both Tylenol and Ibuprofen (Metamizol), but it has been forbidden on the US based on a study attributing strong side-effects to it, despite it being freely available over the counter on multiple countries for decades without issue.
If this study is true, it should be easy to compare prevalence of autism on these countries that don’t rely on Tylenol.
It's not just banned in the US; it's also banned in France, the UK, Norway, Sweden, Iran, and Canada among others. It is legal OTC in India, the former USSR, China, Mexico, and most of South and Central America. It is the most popular prescribed pain reliever in Germany and the most popular OTC drug in Brazil. It is popular in Spain as well.
Metamizole is actually a very interesting case, to me, as the associated risk is quite strange. It is legal and popular OTC for the majority of the world population; in the countries where it is legal, there are few deaths from the native population. Among tourists who consume it, however, mortality is unusually high. The Spanish health ministry declared in 2018 that it should not be used in the "floating population", including tourists. There may be a genetic component involving Anglo-Saxons. See: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/nov/26/painkiller-b...
The safety aspects of it are not something that gets raised in the UK much - other than suicide attempts, which are going to happen no matter what medicine you use.
Probably the biggest risk comes from people not realising that other medicines (e.g. for cold and flu) often include it, so they double up on a dose.
A friend of mine, Eric Engstrom, died of liver failure after taking (too much) Tylenol. Tylenol use over time can sneak up on you in the form of cumulative liver damage.
No, I'm not a doctor and this isn't medical advice.
Personally, a works-most-of-the-time treatment for headaches is going out for a walk. I don't know why it works, but it does.
Yep, my mom worked in the pediatric ER, she never let Tylenol/acetaminophen in the house, my understanding is that she saw way too many cases of liver damage and death.
If Paracetamol was invented today it would likely never receive an OTC (over the counter sale, meaning you can just buy it from a retail outlet the way you'd buy cough medicine or toothpaste) license in the UK. Yes, it's safe (and for a bunch of people including me, effective) at the licensed dose, but it's useless at about half that dose, and it's toxic, leading to very nasty deaths in some cases, at just about 3-4 times that effective dose.
That's a very narrow efficacy window. There are modern drugs with a narrow efficacy window but they have pharmacy only licenses or require prescription, which both mean somebody who knows what the hell they're doing sold you the drug, not the automated checkout at a supermarket. That's a vital opportunity to spot that e.g. you're taking this every single day (so it's ongoing pain, probably needs a different intervention, paracetamol is contrandicated) or you have an obvious wound, which needs medical attention not painkillers. Or sometimes very dumb things, like, hey, the actual symptoms you have described mean you're likely pregnant did you even realise that? Would you like a pregnancy test instead ?
personal responsibility is more common in the UK, it is assumed that one can cross the road safely without needing traffic lights for example, or walk along a stretch of an ancient monument without needing a handrail.
I've never met anyone here who has ever had any issues associated with paracetamol abuse/overdose, and only a single person who failed to cross the road correctly.
It's weird that you're surprised, it's one of the most dangerous otc drugs, and is the leading cause of liver failure on the planet. I'm always surprised that British people treat it like aspirin, because an overdose can easily kill you.
I'm serious. Over 50% of all liver failure is due to acetaminophen, and 20% of liver transplants.
Mildly amusing anecdote: years ago I visited my then-company's office in London (I'm from the US), and fell sick during my time there. One of my London-local colleagues recommended I get "Night Nurse", and told me of the magical virtues of paracetamol. I'd never heard of it (either the brand name or the drug name), and assumed it was some great drug that for some silly reason the US FDA decided not to approve. It worked perfectly well, but frankly no better than what I'd take at home.
Much later I looked up "paracetamol" and discovered it's the same thing as acetaminophen... "oh, Night Nurse is just the UK version of NyQuil", I realized, somewhat disappointed, the magic lost.
> I'm always surprised at the hostility to Acetaminophen
I wouldn't say I'm hostile toward it, but the number one cause of headaches for me is alcohol consumption, and I was taught that alcohol plus acetaminophen is a strict no-no. Ibuprofen -- in the recommended dose -- is generally fine with alcohol. (I don't binge drink anymore, but as I get older, even 3 or 4 cocktails over the span of 4-6 hours can give me a headache later.)
But when I come down with a cold, it's (the cheaper, generic version of) NyQuil for me. A bonus is that NyQuil also contains dextromethorphan (cough suppressant) and doxylamine succinate (antihistamine) (or phenylephrine in the non-drowsy DayQuil variant), which IIRC Night Nurse/Day Nurse did not include. (Looks like it does contain dextromethorphan and promethazine now; not sure if it didn't back then, or if I'm just misremembering.)
There really are risks. It's just not worth it during pregnancy. The pain killing effects of tylenol aren't worth the potential risks during pregnancy.
There are also real risks to ignoring pain and the destructive effects it has to quality of life and mental well being, all of which can have effects on the mother's and the fetus's health.
What is a pregnant person with debilitating pain such as a migraine supposed to do?
>While the study does not show that acetaminophen directly causes neurodevelopmental disorders,
_magic statement_.
Because tylenol is often used to treat a symptom like inflammation, that is where the problem could really lie and needs more studying. Inflammation in the human body causes tons of damage.
Shit, you know why measles is serious in adults? Sure pretty every adult can shrug it off, BUT. It causes mass inflammation in the human body, and because of that, it can and does make men sterile because inflammation kills the testes ability to produce sperm.
Yep, my wife didn’t take Tylenol during pregnancy due to actual studied risks to the child. If she had a headache she just bore the pain. RFK is a loony and I don’t know about the link to autism but Tylenol should not be taken by the mother during pregnancy.
When something like this happens there’s a non-zero chance some slimy hedge fund is behind this pushing conspiracy theories on gullible folks to tank a stock.
92 comments
[ 2.1 ms ] story [ 91.0 ms ] threadBut it turns out there may actually be some emerging evidence to support this. This recent Harvard meta-analysis [1] from just last month looked at 46 different studies and suggested that there may actually be something happening here although it's not conclusive. Correlation but not yet causation.
Nobody should be making policy on this yet, but it's the kind of thing that I would allocate some research dollars to if I hadn't just fired all of the competent researchers.
1 - https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/using-acetaminophen-during-pre...
EDIT: Indeed it is! The US government is scooby-doo villains? https://www.npr.org/2024/08/05/nx-s1-5063939/rfk-jr-central-...
I do not have at all the right background to evaluate this research so treat this opinion for what it's worth, but it seems incautious for the authors to close with this note near the end. People like RFK are looking for an explanation for that 20-fold increase. But the hazard ratios in the studies with positive results seem to be along the lines of 1.05-1.20. They do also note changes in diagnosis criteria before this sentence, but it still seems like if they're going to mention a 20-fold increase, they should be even more explicit that any association with increased Tylenol use could only ever explain a very small part of that.
Maybe we should. We're talking about pregnant women and autism, along with taking a different painkiller. And if the theory is wrong, it'll only take a few years to find out, presumably.
For people who don't have children: most medical advice regarding pregnant women and infants is overwhelmingly cautious and errs on the side of, "if we don't have enough studies confirming it's 100% safe, it's better to stick to the less questionably safe way." I'm not sure why this would be any different.
All you’re stating is that you’ve found an echo chamber - which is true of Hacker News (and Reddit, and BlueSky). It’s also true of TruthSocial. I guess my annoyance is that this is Hacker news not DNC news - and as such, I’d hope for more than one (or even two!) perspectives.
I don’t think RFK has shot his credibility - even if he did withdraw from the DNC on October 9, 2023, less than two years ago. His perspective seems stable 20 years on after he wrote “Deadly Immunity” in 2005.
If you think he lost credibility, it wasn’t recent.
Yes but that is the whole RFK brand. He and his supporters always try to have their cake and eat it too. Claim something, things go wrong and blame others for misconstruing RFK's comments.
The way this is going - RFK is going to make claims based on this paper and when people get harmed, he and his supporters will claim that people who followed RFK's assertion didn't hear him correctly. He clearly said the policy was based on this paper and people should have done more research and read this paper. See this paper says there is correlation and not causation. So, you cannot blame RFK for this mishap.
You may not owe people who you feel are disgusting quacks better, but you owe this community better if you're participating in it.
I wouldn’t entirely rule out there being environmental factors, but from the data I could gather it seems that acetaminophen usage has decreased in pregnancy over the last several decades in the US, while autism has increased.
This all seems to go back to the boomer generation believing the world was simpler when they grew up and that it was somehow ruined. That may be true about some things but the reality of their generation is they had no idea what people were going through, and didn’t have the language to describe it
How much are people willing to bet that the incidence of autism will remain unchanged and the administration will disavow everything.
“Nobody knew autism was so complicated.” — future Trump, probably.
"Autism rates have gone down 500% during my r/e/i/g/n/ administration!"
Tylenol was introduced in 1955. Autism was first scientifically documented in 1926. If Tylenol causes autism, how did those parents in the 1920s get their hands on it?
Also, wouldn't there been a clear link between Tylenol sales and the occurrence of autism? Where is the data showing that the adoption of Tylenol in the 1960s resulted in a rise in autism, and that the "rise" of autism in the 1990s is linked to an increase in Tylenol use?
The claim is that Tylenol is a factor that increases the risk of autism. It is not the cause of 100% of all cases.
That said, the first synthesis of Paracetamol in the USA was Johns Hopkins in 1877, so maybe the answer is they went to Baltimore.
- going after quacks who promote bleach, horse dewormers (maybe that's the problem), and raw milk
- adopt the precautionary principle
- approve EU sunscreen compounds without animal testing and banning reef/human unsafe ones
- leave science to scientists
- increase regulatory oversight over food manufacturing, additive, and supply chain regulation so there aren't canyons of non-enforcement or exclusions between FDA and USDA
Or, maybe, this is really radical... find someone else competent to do the job.
I remember an old study linking ultrasounds to lefthandedness. It was legit. Families with access to ultrasounds lived in countries/areas where lefthandedness was more culturally accepted, places where it was not drilled out of kids. The study was correct, but anyone touting it as causation was totally incorrect.
Fyi, sharks are way more likely to attack people with australian accents. Never go swimming with an auzzi.
Paracetamol/acetaminophen (the active ingredient in tylenol) is super toxic to the liver. Lots of people overdose on it, some by accident and some deliberately. As little as FOUR GRAMS can cause jaundice and fuck up your liver. If you have a fever, taking 1 gram every couple of hours might seem entirely reasonable, but it can kill you.
Regardless of any autism links, it's good to be careful with this stuff.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide_scandal
Tylenol only helps for minor aches and pains that frankly, pregnant mothers should just deal with for the good of their unborn child. The risk is not worth it.
RFK Jr. isn't right on everything, but he's not wrong on everything either and it's refreshing seeing someone head HHS that isn't in big pharma's pocket for a change.
Who's to say that the mother experiencing a ton of pain doesnt also affect the fetus?
where's your proof that its safe to leave a prefnant woman in pain?
So 10 times the typical dose is when you have overdose effects. (basically 20 pills per day vs 2 pills per day).
Not your "wildly unsafe at slightly above usage levels" AT ALL (as someone posted on here)
This is not harmless - this might cause someone to take more dangerous painkillers when acetaminophen (tylenol) might have safely helped them. The autism stuff is plainly false and disproved.
I took the typical two 325 mg aspirin for headache thru college and grad school.
Years later I had a cracked rib and was prescribed 800 mg ibufprofen twice daily. The rib pain vanished for the duration (and my swim times improved significantly)! I became a convert to Advil.
Years later I'm older and minimize my painkillers - most of the time I take nothing but coffee. But if sudden brain pain strikes I take either baby aspirin, ibuprofen, or "Headache Relief", a witches' brew sold by many vendors (typically ~250 mg acetaminophen, 250 mg aspirin and caffeine). So I'm hedging my bets!
If I must use something every day then I use baby aspirin (if worried about heart/circulatory issues) or ibuprofen (if worried about pain). When I need to think clearly (most the time) I avoid acetaminophen.
IMHO people overestimate the "gut bleeding" risk from NSAIDS.
No, I do not think we do, because it causes none of the side-effects associated with NSAIDs, and it is even safer than acetaminophen, i.e. there is no risk of hepatotoxicity whatsoever. The only side-effect is euphoria. Please do not mention respiratory depression here, that is a non-issue, it matters as so much as liver failure matters with acetaminophen overdoses. Opiates are safer than any painkillers currently in existence, the problem is with impure products (i.e. not from the pharmacy), and people misusing / abusing them. They might as well abuse NSAIDs and acetaminophen, and the result is the same: harm. Taken therapeutically though, it is way safer than any other painkillers.
So I am not sure what your intention was with that sentence, because sadly no, people do not realize the therapeutic safety profile.
Tramadol is a nasty atypical opioid though, you could have singled that one out. It affects almost all receptors (serotonin, dopamine, etc.) there is, and it is one of the nastiest opioids out there, but that is why it is called an "atypical" opioid.
Edit: I missed constipation as a side-effect, see my other comment.
Likewise I find it one of the least _effective_ painkillers on the market.
If you consider the relevant research you might think differently: https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/using-acetaminophen-during-pre...
If this study is true, it should be easy to compare prevalence of autism on these countries that don’t rely on Tylenol.
Metamizole is actually a very interesting case, to me, as the associated risk is quite strange. It is legal and popular OTC for the majority of the world population; in the countries where it is legal, there are few deaths from the native population. Among tourists who consume it, however, mortality is unusually high. The Spanish health ministry declared in 2018 that it should not be used in the "floating population", including tourists. There may be a genetic component involving Anglo-Saxons. See: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/nov/26/painkiller-b...
Here's a map of its availability: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Metamizole_(Dipyrone...
It's one of the most commonly used medicines in the UK - and certainly the most popular painkiller.
YouGov even did a survey confirming that - https://ygo-assets-websites-editorial-emea.yougov.net/docume...
The safety aspects of it are not something that gets raised in the UK much - other than suicide attempts, which are going to happen no matter what medicine you use.
Probably the biggest risk comes from people not realising that other medicines (e.g. for cold and flu) often include it, so they double up on a dose.
No, I'm not a doctor and this isn't medical advice.
Personally, a works-most-of-the-time treatment for headaches is going out for a walk. I don't know why it works, but it does.
That's a very narrow efficacy window. There are modern drugs with a narrow efficacy window but they have pharmacy only licenses or require prescription, which both mean somebody who knows what the hell they're doing sold you the drug, not the automated checkout at a supermarket. That's a vital opportunity to spot that e.g. you're taking this every single day (so it's ongoing pain, probably needs a different intervention, paracetamol is contrandicated) or you have an obvious wound, which needs medical attention not painkillers. Or sometimes very dumb things, like, hey, the actual symptoms you have described mean you're likely pregnant did you even realise that? Would you like a pregnancy test instead ?
I've never met anyone here who has ever had any issues associated with paracetamol abuse/overdose, and only a single person who failed to cross the road correctly.
I'm serious. Over 50% of all liver failure is due to acetaminophen, and 20% of liver transplants.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4913076/
Mildly amusing anecdote: years ago I visited my then-company's office in London (I'm from the US), and fell sick during my time there. One of my London-local colleagues recommended I get "Night Nurse", and told me of the magical virtues of paracetamol. I'd never heard of it (either the brand name or the drug name), and assumed it was some great drug that for some silly reason the US FDA decided not to approve. It worked perfectly well, but frankly no better than what I'd take at home.
Much later I looked up "paracetamol" and discovered it's the same thing as acetaminophen... "oh, Night Nurse is just the UK version of NyQuil", I realized, somewhat disappointed, the magic lost.
> I'm always surprised at the hostility to Acetaminophen
I wouldn't say I'm hostile toward it, but the number one cause of headaches for me is alcohol consumption, and I was taught that alcohol plus acetaminophen is a strict no-no. Ibuprofen -- in the recommended dose -- is generally fine with alcohol. (I don't binge drink anymore, but as I get older, even 3 or 4 cocktails over the span of 4-6 hours can give me a headache later.)
But when I come down with a cold, it's (the cheaper, generic version of) NyQuil for me. A bonus is that NyQuil also contains dextromethorphan (cough suppressant) and doxylamine succinate (antihistamine) (or phenylephrine in the non-drowsy DayQuil variant), which IIRC Night Nurse/Day Nurse did not include. (Looks like it does contain dextromethorphan and promethazine now; not sure if it didn't back then, or if I'm just misremembering.)
https://www.mountsinai.org/about/newsroom/2025/mount-sinai-s...
What is a pregnant person with debilitating pain such as a migraine supposed to do?
_magic statement_.
Because tylenol is often used to treat a symptom like inflammation, that is where the problem could really lie and needs more studying. Inflammation in the human body causes tons of damage.
Shit, you know why measles is serious in adults? Sure pretty every adult can shrug it off, BUT. It causes mass inflammation in the human body, and because of that, it can and does make men sterile because inflammation kills the testes ability to produce sperm.