So Tylenol sent 78,000 people to the emergency room

[Thinktank]

Regular aspirin users at higher risk of sight problems, research suggests
People who take a daily dose of aspirin are twice as likely to suffer blindness in later life, a study suggests.



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/88040 ... gests.html

[Fancy]

With regards to the link you posted:

However he added that for those who were suffering from heart disease, the benefits of taking aspirin outweighed the risks posed to their vision.

“A healthy eye with full visual capacities is of no use in a dead body,” he said.

Aspirin isn't Tylenol.

Aspirin is acetylsalicylic acid.

Tylenol is acetaminophen.

Two different drugs.

Tylenol is putting (or have put) warning labels to advise customers to READ THE LABEL. Simple.

[atenbacon]

Regular aspirin users at higher risk of sight problems, research suggests
People who take a daily dose of aspirin are twice as likely to suffer blindness in later life, a study suggests.



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/88040 ... gests.html

Yeah, and crack cocaine users are at higher risk of wasting away to shells of their former selves, ultimately resulting in death. This has as much to do with Tylenol as aspirin does.

[Dizzy1]

So Thinktank, what exactly is your point? Are you suggesting that 78 000 people got a headache and popped a pill and then was rushed off to the ER?

Drugs are drugs, they have uses and they have abuses ... like almost everything in life there is a line that one shouldn't be crossing and we have warning lables left, right and center to warn us of that line.

Do meds have side effects? Sure they do. Is everyone affected by those side effects, not a chance. If the doctor is prescribing you any kind of medication, common sense (I know, its a rare thing these days) would dictate to have regular check ups done to see if one is having any adverse side effects from any drug, no matter how common they are.

As far the whole Asprin reducing heart disease marketing, so does a proper diet and exercise ... not as convenient as popping a couple of pills but the lack of side effects is a winning argument.

[Oxl3y]

Drink enough water and you can die. Should that be banned?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication

Taking too much of pretty much anything can be bad for you could you be any more over dramatic?

[mexi cali]

but according to tv - the flu probably will kill us.

not a word about tylenol.

A list of things that might kill you not mentioned on TV:

Swallowing razor blades
Ingesting rat poison
standing in front of a bus
train
car
tractor
falling into a threshing machine
Choking on jaw breaker
Self immolation
Auto erotica
jumping in front of an arrow
bullet
hand grenade
twist tying a plastic bag over your head
swallowing a plastic bag
swallowing a black widow
brown recluse
an adder
a rattlesnake

I need your point please.

[faith177]

The point is that any of those things you mentioned are common sense, however the medical field has led us to believe that tylenol is harmless, when in fact it has serious health consequences when used alot. I work in health care and I can attest that the aging population is prescribed daily tylenol use quite frequently.

[Thinktank]

So Thinktank, what exactly is your point?

^ this is my point.

But wait - it's not only GSK that does dirty marketing tricks.



My point is the pharmaceutical companies have no respect at all for people - they only respect profits.
I bet 80% of the drugs people are taking are unnecesary, and the side effects can be disastrous - like
people getting a stroke from heart pills. Going blind from apsirin. Or just dieing. Of course people
want their drugs, so the drug companies are just giving them what they want.

[Fancy]

Since the pharmaceutical companies clearly label instructions and warnings on the labels, it appears they are being responsible. Don't take tylenol if you are concerned and I didn't see tylenol on the list which was your topic of discussion.

[Thinktank]

But can you imagine with all the $millions of dollars the drug companies can
afford to pay their lawyers, if they paid out $billions in fines for dirty marketing tactics,
how many more $billions of dirty tricks did they do, that their lawyers were able to cover up?

tylenol could very well be on that list, if not for clever lawyers.

[Bsuds]

More to the point is the fact that many other OTC medications have Tylenol in them and don't warn people well enough not to overdose on it.
Also the printing is so damn small how do they expect people to read the warnings.

[Fancy]

I use a magnifying glass.

[mexi cali]

My point is the pharmaceutical companies have no respect at all for people - they only respect profits.
I bet 80% of the drugs people are taking are unnecesary, and the side effects can be disastrous - like
people getting a stroke from heart pills. Going blind from apsirin. Or just dieing. Of course people
want their drugs, so the drug companies are just giving them what they want.

knew it would happen one day but I agree with you. Pharmaceutical manufacturers are in business to make money and boy do they. However, as Fancy points out, anything that you may need or want to know about any drug is available if you want it.

Do you really think that the drug manufacturers would spend all the money they do on advertising the side effects of their products on TV commercials and paper press where it takes 3 pages to list all of the side effects if they didn't have to?

They are about as regulated as it gets.

There is a ton of money to be made prescribing drugs and we are a chemical dependant society so if the Doc says take two of these and call me in the morning, we do.