16.10.2013 - 00:16 [ Protect Patients Blog ]

How Big Pharma and the Feds Caused Infant Deaths Over Confusing Acetaminophen Dosages

For 15 years, McNeil Consumer Healthcare, a division of Johnson & Johnson, had sold two versions of Tylenol for young children even though the company knew that parents and doctors were confusing the two. They knew that confusion could have serious, even deadly, results. The FDA ignored the problem.

We’ve addressed the problem with dosing with acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, and now a shocking story by the investigative news site ProPublica.org probes even deeper into the confusion over the two types of pediatric Tylenol, and why that’s so dangerous. Remarkably, the story says, “Drop for drop, the strength of Infants’ Tylenol far exceeded that of Children’s Tylenol.