OTC Medications for Dummies

We don't wander into medicine often here at the Antisocial Network, but that's because we're not particularly qualified to dispense advice. Band-Aids on your boo-boos, maybe, but not medical advice. Of course, lack of qualification never stopped any freelancer from blathering on about any topic, and serial dummy Isabelle Esteves (of Writedge.com) is no exception. Today, Iz (as she apparently likes to be called) put aside her faux travel reviews long enough to expound on the "Risk Of Too Much Acetaminophen."¹ Shouldn't that be "risks"? we wondered... never mind.

Izzy, as she often does, simply reworded a press release or a story she found somewhere – we suppose that means she isn't really a freelance writer, just a freelance reworder. But we digress. Esteves did nothing but summarize the original paper, slap on a picture of some aspirin (which isn't the same as acetaminophen, though she probably doesn't  know that), and collect her paycheck. Of course, her rewording, as is common among freelancers without sufficient background in their topic, changed some of the facts. Here's the wording of the original:

"Overall, 23.8 % of participants demonstrated they would overdose on a single over-the-counter acetaminophen product by exceeding a dose of four grams in a 24-hour period; 5.2 % made serious errors by dosing out more than six grams. In addition, 45.6 % of adults demonstrated they would overdose by ‘double-dipping’ with two acetaminophen-containing products."

as opposed to Izzy's spun version:

"More than 23 percent admitted to the researchers that they would take more than the recommended dosage of acetaminophen in a single product over a 24 hour period. Of the 23 percent, more than 5 percent made grievous miscalculations when it came to the amount they were allowed to take."

 "...grievous miscalculations"? Cute wording, but that's why scientific papers don't use flowery language. 

We were also disturbed by Esteves' introductory statement,

"...acetaminophen [is] commonly sold under the name Tylenol."

Were she concerned with getting out the word, so to speak, she might have also mentioned that acetaminophen is widely sold as Panadol, Tipol, Calpol, and hundreds of other brand names plus generic acetaminophen and paracetamol. In other words, she isn't helping people prevent that "double-dipping" that's so "grievously" dangerous. Since she only rewords the executive summary and not the paper itself, Iz misses the most important point: people don't read the damned labels to look for the active ingredients and aren't aware of the maximum daily dose. Not including that information means Iz is a dumbass (again); our Dumbass of the Day.

¹ This website is now defunct, but you can see the post using the Wayback machine at archive.org. Its URL was   writedge.com/risk-of-too-much-acetaminophen/

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