Do You Know What’s in Your Pain Pill?
People take billions of doses of over-the-counter pain relievers like Tylenol every year, but many do not pay attention to the active ingredients they contain, such as acetaminophen, according to a new Northwestern Medicine study. That lack of knowledge about popular pain relievers plus particular ignorance of acetaminophen’s presence in more than 600 over-the-counter and prescription medicines could be a key reason acetaminophen overdose has become the leading cause of acute liver failure in the U.S.
Full article on painkiller ingredients.
I’ve heard about this being a big deal. Who are these people that take so many medicines that they don’t know which ones have overlapping ingredients?
If a drug maker had recently developed acetaminophen and tried to gain approval to sell it over the counter today, they would probably not be successful. Of course, the same is true of aspirin.