It’s safe to assume that the vast majority of you have a bottle or blister pack of acetaminophen/paracetamol/Tylenol/Panadol in your home medicine cabinet, and an even vaster majority of you have taken the medicine at some point in your life. After all, acetaminophen/paracetamol is one of the most, if not the most, widely used medications worldwide. Despite its near ubiquity, many unanswered questions remain. How does it actually work? Should safe dosage guidelines be revisited? Why on earth does it have multiple names? And finally, who was responsible for the Tylenol murders in 1982? In this jam-packed episode, we do our best to make sense of the mysteries surrounding this drug, weaving our way from the pharmaceutical nitty gritty of acetaminophen/paracetamol to the bizarre story of its discovery, from the horrific crimes that shocked a nation and revolutionized consumer safety standards to the ongoing discussions of whether we’re under- or overestimating how safe this medication actually is.
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Ep 129 Lymphatic Filariasis: Hiding in plain sight
Ep 128 Skin Cancer: We love and fear the sun
Ep 127 Bhopal: The 1984 Union Carbide Disaster
Ep 126 Migraine: A Cacophony in Four Movements
Ep 125 Blastomycosis: How fungus became amongus
Ep 124 The full spectrum of color vision deficiency
Ep 123 Hand, Foot, and Mouth (and Butt?) Disease
Ep 122 Asthma: A phlegmy episode
Special Episode: Ed Yong & An Immense World
Ep 121 Tularemia: Hare today, gone tomorrow
Special Episode: Deborah Blum & The Poison Squad
Special Episode: Dr. Andrew Wehrman & The Contagion of Liberty
Ep 119 Marburg virus: Too fast, too furious
Special Episode: Dr. Steven Thrasher & The Viral Underclass
Ep 118 Asbestos: Corruption and cancer and corporate greed, oh my!
Special Episode: Mary Roach & Fuzz
Ep 117 Bedbugs: Bug-bitten and bedeviled
Special Episode: Dr. Kate Clancy & Period
Ep 116 It's never lupus (except this time)
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