Quote Originally Posted by Alcibiates View Post
I study medicinal chemistry, and we're routinely given studies like these and told to refute them as an exercise in reading clinical studies. Here are the main issues:

The study proposes no causal relationship. It uses children who take Tylenol a certain amount of times per year but ignores why the drug is being used. If you look at the second study they mention in the article, they are specifically looking at acetaminophen vs ibuprofen usage during viral respiratory infections--consider that the number of respiratory infections a child experiences through their early life is going to have a much stronger causal relationship to asthamtic symptoms than nearly any drug would.

This one's going to get a bit wilder, but it's a documented issue with using acetaminophen as a fever reducer for low-grade fevers. If you take the body's normal response to a viral infection, it's primary response is to raise the core body temperature. Most viruses must survive in a very narrow window of temperature, and can be killed off with a 3 degree shift (IE a 101f fever). Using acetaminophen to reduce the fever and lower pain stems the body's natural response to the virus, and allows the virus to live for longer within the body and cause more damage within the body. Ibuprofen is a pain killer without the fever reducer and allows the body to continue the fever to fight the infection. If we, again, take the viral respiratory infection as an example, we see a lot of viral infections treated with antibiotics and fever reducers. Antibiotics do not interact with viruses, and essentially do nothing. The fever reducer actually does more damage than doing nothing.

So, that's my sense of things. I highly doubt that the actual acetaminophen is doing any damage itself, but is rather creating a situation where the viral infections (or bacterial infections) are doing damage and causing the effects you're seeing. Giving Tylenol as a pain killer is more than likely fine, but I would never suggest giving it as a fever reducer. Fever's are one of our body's primary defenses and artificially reducing a fever can cause great damage to a body. Anything under a 103 fever does not do damage to your body, and once you hit 103 or higher, it's time to start considering going to a hospital; either way, Tylenol is not the right answer.
Fascinating stuff - and for an "untrained" parent and grandparent - this is pretty eye opening. Listening to my kids Pediatrician, I was told the 103 or higher fever can cause damage - so it is best to get that fever under 101 - beyond aspirin or Tylenol to the point I've had them tell me to toss the kid in an ice bath (try that some time!!!).

So essentially there is potential respiratory damage from the infection (and not letting the body naturally take care of it through fever by treating with fever reducers) -OR- there is potential neurological damage from not treating the fever.

All I know is - the US Surgeon General has linked the leading cause of death in humans to living...