MARC SIEGEL (SENIOR MEDICAL ANALYST): Well, they made it very difficult for doctors, let’s face it. Because acetaminophen is the most common ingredient in over-the-counter medications, and everybody’s familiar with it for decades. But when you start putting out premature warnings on it, especially to pregnant women, which is a very vulnerable group, where I’m already telling pregnant women take — less is more. We try to keep pregnant women away from taking a lot of medications unless they really need it. So we already knew that, Dana. We already knew that. We’re not popping medications or pushing them on pregnant women. We only use antibiotics if we’re really sure it’s an infection.
But the problem is that high fevers have been associated with neurodevelopmental disorders, too, and this is not been associated with it. It’s in the early stages of: ‘let’s do more study.’ And then we find out from the Wall Street Journal that the lead author of the study they’ve been leaning on that was published in August was actually defending the plaintiff, or actually was testifying on behalf of the plaintiff in Tylenol trials. So this is incredibly premature.
I’m glad they’re looking into the effect of acetaminophen on pregnancy for one reason and one reason only, which is the current guidelines say you can take up to three grams, which is the same amount that an adult uses who isn’t pregnant. I think the dosing needs to be looked at. But when you put out an FDA warning like this, and then say, go ask your doctor, your doctor may be worried about saying go ahead and take it, and then what happens if the person gets sick and starts blaming it? It’s a mess. It’s a total mess. So just saying to ask your doctor isn’t the answer. It used to be the answer, now it’s a problem.
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