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From the bottle of acetaminophen on my desk: Take 1 or 2 tablets with water, every 4 to 6 hours. If pain or fever does not respond to 1 tablet, take 2 tablets

From the bottle of acetaminophen on my desk: Take 1 or 2 tablets with water, every 4 to 6 hours. If pain or fever does not respond to 1 tablet, take 2 tablets at the next dose." Now, why wait to take 2 tablets? And maybe your headache is really bad. If 2 are stronger, 4 must be better.... 4 pills every four hours means that in a day you can get 8 grams dosage. Sure, it says "No more than 8", but it's in tiny letters, and most people don't actually realise just how serious the danger is. 16 tablets over the course of the day isn't really what most people think of as a drug overdose for something as "innocent" as tylenol. In addition, some cold medicine has acetaminophen in it, and you might not realize that your cough syrup was contributing to your dosage. Then bam, liver failure. If you're genuinely curious, there's a really good episode of This American Life on acetaminophen poisoning and the labeling standards set by the FDA. Link: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/505/use-only-as-directed http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/505/u...

bentcorner 13y ago
The example in TAL's podcast that really got me was the mixup between infant and child tylenol that resulted in the death of a child. I've gotten in the habit (before I had children) of reading labels and understanding their contents, dosages and concentrations (if only for the amusement that there seems to be only a handful of drugs in boxes that typically take up several meters of store shelf space). However, the situation of the death of that child in the podcast wasn't out of the ordinary. Simple miscommunication between parent and doctor, and the lack of knowledge of how little acetaminophen you really need to overdose. Specifying dosages as volumes of liquid is dangerous without knowledge of concentration. Better to specify mg of acetaminophen and let people work the math out (maybe that's asking too much).
- malandrew 13y ago
  I honestly don't understand why printing the LD50 isn't mandatory on all warning labels.

bentcorner 13y ago

The example in TAL's podcast that really got me was the mixup between infant and child tylenol that resulted in the death of a child. I've gotten in the habit (before I had children) of reading labels and understanding their contents, dosages and concentrations (if only for the amusement that there seems to be only a handful of drugs in boxes that typically take up several meters of store shelf space). However, the situation of the death of that child in the podcast wasn't out of the ordinary. Simple miscommunication between parent and doctor, and the lack of knowledge of how little acetaminophen you really need to overdose. Specifying dosages as volumes of liquid is dangerous without knowledge of concentration. Better to specify mg of acetaminophen and let people work the math out (maybe that's asking too much).

malandrew 13y ago
I honestly don't understand why printing the LD50 isn't mandatory on all warning labels.