Every week, about a quarter of all Americans use Tylenol, or acetaminophen, known as paracetamol in other countries.

But if you understand how centrally planned the products we consume seem to be, you might be asking the question: why was this particular drug chosen to be the staple over-the-counter painkiller?

Why was this chosen to be the staple OTC painkiller when it can cause liver failure, it kills empathy, and it’s not even that effective?

Perhaps it is because it kills empathy, and that was known before 2016 when a paper was published about it’s ability to do so. The paper was titled “From painkiller to empathy killer: acetaminophen (paracetamol) reduces empathy for pain,” published in the Oxford journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience.

The study’s main author, Dr Dominik Mischkowski said:

“These findings suggest other people’s pain doesn’t seem as big of a deal to you when you’ve taken acetaminophen. Acetaminophen can reduce empathy as well as serve as a painkiller.”

Study co-author, Dr Baldwin Way said:

If you are having an argument with your spouse and you just took acetaminophen, this research suggests you might be less understanding of what you did to hurt your spouse’s feelings.”

According to Spring.org, “Previous research has also found that the drug can reduce the positive emotions of those taking it.”

Pharma corporations knowingly poison people seeking to get high off of opioids by cutting almost every opioid with Tylenol, called “APAP.”

Purdue Pharma, Insys Therapeutics, these corporations cut Oxycontin, Hydrocodone, and other drugs with APAP, while in countries where Codeine is legal, corporations cut that with it.

In Australia where extremely small doses of Codeine are legalized, with so much Paracetamol that it would kill the person if they tried to abuse the opioid, people have died from the slow and painful liver failure caused by the drug. According to an instance of this happening summarized by the Sydney Morning Herald:

“Ms Cunningham was brought to the Nepean Hospital emergency department the same day she died, feeling very drowsy and suffering from low blood pressure.

Her condition deteriorated quickly, and she became unconscious and developed organ failure. It emerged she had been hiding her addiction to pain medication from her mother, who she lived with, and recently had been taking as many as 40 tablets a day.”

But it makes the practice of cutting painkillers with this drug so much more evil, knowing that an acetaminophen overdose is one of the most slow, agonizing deaths possible, and that people would inevitably abuse the opioids.

It takes 24- 48 hours for the symptoms of overdose to come at all: but by that time, it’s too late to have the antidote, N-acetylcysteine.

N-acetylcysteine is administered to people who go to the hospital about 24 hours after overdosing or before, but after that, it’s too late. So by the time symptoms appear, you’re going to have liver and kidney failure and slowly die for several days, possibly over a week, knowing nothing can save you.

Moral of the story: pharma corporations should not cut drugs with this dangerous, strange substance, and just because you feel little from it doesn’t mean it’s not shutting off parts of your brain responsible for empathy. Be careful what you consume.

(Image credit: Liver Disease Cure)