Paracetamol (or acetaminophen) is a common analgesic, a drug that is used to relieve pain. It can also be used to reduce fever, and some kinds of headache. This makes it an antipyretic, something that reduces fevers. It is used in many drugs that treat the flu and colds.
The IUPAC (International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry) name for paracetamol is Acetaminophen.[11] The words acetaminophen and paracetamol both come from the names of the chemicals used in the compound: N-acetyl-para-aminophenol and para-acetyl-amino-phenol. Sometimes, it is shortened to APAP, for N-acetyl-para-aminophenol.
Paracetamol is considered safe for use. The drug is easily available without a prescription. People often take too much Paracetamol. Sometimes this is because people do not know how much they should take. The recommended dose may not work for some people. Other times it is because they are trying to commit suicide. Very often, a person's liver can be hurt when they take too much Paracetamol.[12] A dose of 150 milligrams for every kilogram of the person's weight (about 10 grams for most adults) will lead to permanent liver damage, and may cause the liver to fail. For people whose livers have already been damaged, such as alcoholics, and for those with a limited secretion of Paracetamol, this amount can be much smaller.[13][14][15]
In England and Wales, about 30.000 people per year go to the hospital after taking too much paracetamol (called paracetamol poisoning), and about 150 die of the poisoning. Since a law was passed saying that Paracetamol packets cannot be too large, fewer people have been committing suicide with Paracetamol.[16] In Great Britain[17] and the United States Paracetamol is the main reason for acute liver failure. About half of the cases are because of an 'unintentional overdose'.[12]
In 1982, there was a case of sabotage:[18][19] Packets of paracetamol had been tampered with: Seven people died, because they had taken poisoned samples. As a result, the FDA made stricter regulations. Also, Paracetamol-products worth 100 million US dollars were called back.
↑Working Group of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists and Faculty of Pain Medicine (2015). Schug SA, Palmer GM, Scott DA, Halliwell R, Trinca J (eds.). Acute Pain Management: Scientific Evidence (4th ed.). Melbourne: Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (ANZCA), Faculty of Pain Medicine (FPM). ISBN978-0-9873236-7-5. Archived from the original(PDF) on 31 July 2019. Retrieved 28 October 2019.
↑Karthikeyan M, Glen RC, Bender A (2005). "General Melting Point Prediction Based on a Diverse Compound Data Set and Artificial Neural Networks". Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling. 45 (3): 581–590. doi:10.1021/ci0500132. PMID15921448.
↑Roberts, L. Jackson; Morrow, Jason D. (2001). "Analgesic-antipyretic and antiinflammatory agents and drugs employed in the treatment of gout". In Gilman, Alfred; Goodman, Louis Sanford; Hardman, Joel G.; Limbird, Lee E. (ed.). Goodman & Gilman's the pharmacological basis of therapeutics. New York: McGraw-Hill. pp. 687–732. ISBN0-07-112432-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
↑Williams, Roger Lawrence; Jean-Pierre Benhamou; Lee, William Thomas (1997). Acute liver failure. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN0-521-55381-4.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
↑K. A. Wolnik, F. L. Fricke, E. Bonnin, C. M. Gaston, R. D. Satzger: The Tylenol tampering incident – tracing the source. In: Anal. Chem. 56, 1984, pp. 466A–470A, 474A. PMID 6711821.
