Acetaminophen (Paracetamol, Tylenol, Panadol, Calpol, Salzone, )
Drugs

"Could the increase in all forms of meningitis and other infectious disease complications and deaths be because for the last 40+ years, the first thing parents do at the slightest sign of temperature is push paracetamol?  I believe so."--Hilary Butler (VRAN Newsletter Jan-March 2003)

See: Fever

Advice on Paracetamol is Unscientific and Unsafe

Citations

[Sept 2008 NZ Letter by Hilary Butler] Media paracetamol article.

[2008] Calpol generation may be vulnerable to asthma and hay fever, study says Giving paracetamol-based medicines such as Calpol to babies can increase their chances of developing asthma in later life

Tylenol depletes Glutathione (necessary for removal of mercury)

[2006] The Long War on Aspirin By FRED GARDNER

[Media Nov 2002] PAIN KILLERS Toni, 17, dies from taking too many paracetamol

[media Oct 2002] Pregnant women get paracetamol warning

[Media 96] Why does a top surgeon want to ban paracetamol?

Package insert

[Media UK, 96] Paracetamol crackdown to cut suicides

[Media USA, March 2001] FDA probes new worry about acetaminophen overdose

Contaminated acetaminophen syrup associated with the deaths of 88 Haitian children

Documentation on dangers of using Ibuprofne, tylenol, etc in illness

The American Association of Poison Control Centers shows the following statistics for reported acetaminophen poisonings in 2001²:

Stephen T. Schultz.  Acetaminophen (paracetamol) use, measles-mumps-rubella vaccination, and autistic disorder
Autism, Vol. 12, No. 3, 293-307 (2008) http://aut.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/12/3/293
DOI: 10.1177/1362361307089518 © 2008 The National Autistic Society, SAGE Publications
The present study was performed to determine whether acetaminophen (paracetamol) use after the measles-mumps-rubella vaccination could be associated with autistic disorder. This case-control study used the results of an online parental survey conducted from 16 July 2005 to 30 January 2006, consisting of 83 children with autistic disorder and 80 control children. Acetaminophen use after measles-mumps-rubella vaccination was significantly associated with autistic disorder when considering children 5 years of age or less (OR 6.11, 95% CI 1.42—26.3), after limiting cases to children with regression in development (OR 3.97, 95% CI 1.11—14.3), and when considering only children who had post-vaccination sequelae (OR 8.23, 95% CI 1.56—43.3), adjusting for age, gender, mother's ethnicity, and the presence of illness concurrent with measles-mumps-rubella vaccination. Ibuprofen use after measles-mumps-rubella vaccination was not associated with autistic disorder. This preliminary study found that acetaminophen use after measles-mumps-rubella vaccination was associated with autistic disorder.

[July 2007] NZ: 'Don't give kids painkillers before shots'
"Can low glutathione create problems with environmental toxicity? Most of the time ER doctors leave biochemistry to the internists, but glutathione is important in the emergency room because of Tylenol overdoses. Tylenol is a very safe molecule unless you take too much. It is metabolized in your body by glutathione. Our body renders the Tylenol metabolite nontoxic and then we excrete it. If you have taken too much Tylenol and it overcomes the store of glutathione in your body, you can no longer metabolize the Tylenol, it becomes toxic, kills your liver, and then you die. The treatment for a Tylenol overdose in the ER is to administer a precursor to glutathione called N Acetyl Cysteine. Tylenol is just one example, but if you are already low in glutathione it’s going to take a lot less of any toxin to cause trouble. This makes sense. It explains why our children are particularly vulnerable to environmental toxicity, even with toxins that are relatively safe for other people."
 

Standard medical advice is to suppress all fevers with Calpol (paracetamol) or Ibuprofen. This is not very helpful when fever is a useful response to infection with a virus or bacterium and runs contrary to the body’s natural attempts to throw out toxins and right itself. In addition, Calpol is metabolised in the liver. The liver is a major component of our immune system and is generally much better occupied in carrying out its immune functions during an illness than blocking itself up detoxifying Calpol.
    If you look carefully at children after they have been supportively nursed through an infectious disease, you will always see them do something new, depending upon their age and circumstances. An infant may produce a tooth; a toddler who kept banging into things will walk confidently; a six-year old who is not reading will suddenly start to read. It is rather like a snake that has to crack off the old skin before it can grow, children go through these crises before they can move on to the next step. I have often seen children with endless snot or lots of warts have both of these cleared by a healthy bout of chicken pox.
    Such infectious diseases do not improve the population, in the harsh Darwinian view of things, by killing off the weak and leaving only the strong ones to reproduce; they actually give each individual child the opportunity to strengthen their own individual immune system and make the best of what they have.
    However, we as a society are not set up to allow the timely unfolding of such events. We teach people to fear all symptoms and expect their immediate removal. In the UK more than 50% of mothers with children under five work away from home, so are not there when their children need to be nursed. So they give them the calpol plus or minus the non-indicated (for viral infections) antibiotics and/or antihistamines (to dry up that cough) so that they can send them back to school/ nursery/ childminder so they can get back to the office where time off to care for sick children is not viewed so sympathetically as time off to take the car to the garage, not to mention the intense pressure that parents are put under by schools to have their children there every day to keep up their attendance figures in order for the school not to be penalised by the government.
    Is it any wonder that so many children with measles end up in hospital – the last place they should be with their lowered cell mediated immunity, and that some of them die – and here I am talking about well nourished children who live in houses and have clean water supplies – not starving children in developing countries who are suffering from malnutrition, live in inadequate, poorly ventilated housing and drink sewage - where measles or infectious diarrhoea is the last straw that breaks the camel’s back.
    And so I reiterate, under normal conditions, if healthy children do die from or become disabled from the complications of measles, questions should be asked about their management. ---[Letter BMJ Feb 2005. Donegan MD. Measles deaths & Autism diagnosis]

BROOKLYN, NY -- April 13, 1998 -- Acetaminophen, the well-known and reliable over-the-counter analgesic, can cause serious damage to liver cells and tissues when an overdose is taken or it is used in combination with alcohol. In 1996 alone, 74,000 cases of acetaminophen toxicity were reported in the United States, according to United States Poison Control Centers figures.

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