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by wgx 1429 days ago
Always a favourite of mine: we still don’t know how Paracetamol works. https://wikenigma.org.uk/content/medicine/drugs/paracetamol
3 comments

Yikes, 80k overdoses per year which can result in stomach lining damage?

Are some medicines not worth the downside for society to have available?

The wiki doesn't cite a source that I see. But I looks like that may be recent misinformation

https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/politifact/202...

No, that bizarre 100K number is the misinformation, but Tylenol overdose is the leading cause of acute liver failure in the US, and accidentally kills 150 people a year (and another 400-500 people who intend to overdose.) The number of people who overdose without death is far more, and a potentially lethal dose is only about 3 times the effective dose.
> Recent research suggests that Paracetamol does have a marginal effect for pain relief - but only in around 25% of individuals - and that its beneficial action in others is due to placeboeffects.
Typical pharmaceutical.
Isn’t acetaminophen similar in that we also don’t know how exactly it works?
Paracetamol and acetaminophen are the same drug, so yes you are correct.

America and Japan refer to the drug as acetaminophen, while most of the rest of the world calls it paracetamol.