As with all things, the poison is in the dose. A tonne of incredibly useful medicine can kill you if dosed incorrectly.

3 days ago | parent | next [-]

[deleted]

	▲	Terr_ 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		> Public awareness that Tylenol causes liver failure which will last weeks before death might dissuade some. I suspect it will: There's statistical evidence from how Britain migrated its cooking gas systems away from carbon-monoxide-heavy mixes [0] indicating overall suicide-rates are sensitive to convenience and involve short-term periods of vulnerability. As contrasted to "if they really want to they'll find a way no matter what." [1] __________ [0] https://www.npr.org/2008/07/08/92319314/in-suicide-preventio... [1] That said, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a bimodal distribution lurking in there, between "depressed but otherwise healthy" versus "terminal diagnosis and chronic pain." The latter-group might not be deterred by inconvenience.

▲

pjerem 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Sure but it’s pretty easy overdose on paracetamol.

Since it’s a mild and really common painkiller, sometimes seen as not dangerous, someone uneducated about it who is really suffering could easily take 3 or 4 times the dose.

Unlike a lot of drugs, you are not going to have a lot of immediate side effects if you overdose on paracetamol. You’ll just horribly die some days after,

▲

basisword 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

How can you reach adulthood and think it's ok to take 3 or 4x the specific dose of any medication? If you're in that much pain you go to a doctor. Which makes me think maybe the issue is the private health system and not the drug.

	▲	zdragnar 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Conversely, my grandmother's Alzheimer's became apparent when she was overdosing on either ibuprofen or aspirin, I forget which. She would take a dose for a headache, ten minutes later she'd forgotten so she'd take another dose, ten minutes later, she had forgotten, take another dose, rinse and repeat until it's time for a trip to the hospital. Maybe it wasn't ten minutes between, probably fewer given how much she'd ended up taking. This happened thirty or so years ago.

▲

littlestymaar 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> someone uneducated about it who is really suffering could easily take 3 or 4 times the dose.

And the solution is simple: educate people about that.

And it's not something hard to do, just have pharmacists say “respect the dose as it will kill you if you don't” every time they sell things and it'll work.

▲

thayne 3 days ago | parent [-]

But Tylenol/acetaminophen/paracetamol is an over the counter drug, so there is no pharmacist involved in most sales. And I certainly wouldn't count on everyone reading the tiny text on the bottle.

	▲	littlestymaar 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		That's entirely a sales (de)regulation problem though. It's funny that in a country where you can win massive sums of money on stupid trials a drug like paracetamol is sold without supervision.

▲

3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

[deleted]