RECALL- Children's Benadryl, tylenol, and motrin

Tylenol has been linked to asthma. I'd suggest you don't use it at all!

Barbfeick, is that true for adults as well.?

Acetaminophen probably causes asthma in adults, too:

"Common Painkiller Acetaminophen Linked to Asthma Tuesday, March 09, 2010 by: David Gutierrez, staff writer
(NaturalNews)

"The common painkiller acetaminophen may increase the risk of asthma and other allergies in both children and adults, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of British Columbia-Vancouver and published in the journal CHEST.

"Acetaminophen, also known as paracetamol, is the active ingredient in the painkillers Tylenol, Anacin, Panadol, and others. Because it does not increase the risk of gastrointestinal bleeding the way aspirin, ibuprofen or other non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) do, it has become the favored analgesic and fever-reducer used in young children.

"Researchers reviewed 19 prior studies on a total of 425,000 children and adults. They found that children who had been treated with the drug in the past year were 60 percent more likely to suffer from asthma than children who had not, while adults who had used the drug in the past year were 75 percent more likely to suffer from the condition.

"People who had taken higher doses of the drug had a higher risk of asthma than people who had taken lower doses. The data also showed a connection between acetaminophen use and wheezing, eczema, runny nose and itchy eyes. The study was not designed to prove cause and effect, however.

"Researchers have been looking for causes of the significant increase in asthma rates over the past 20 years. Suggested culprits have included air pollutants and overly sterile living environments, but the current study points to another potential contributor. According to co-author Mark FitzGerald, it was roughly 20 years ago that doctors began to recommend acetaminophen rather than aspirin for the treatment of fevers and pain in children.

"There was a change in practice and in the succeeding 20 years or so the prevalence of asthma has increased also," he said.

Although ibuprofen does not appear to increase the risk of asthma, it may cause liver and brain damage in some children. "For adults, ibuprofen is probably the safer of the two in terms of asthma risk," co-author Mahyar Etminan said.

"For kids, pediatric guidelines still point to acetaminophen use -- at least until we have a more definitive study." [So.... let's put all the children at risk until another study is done... but that study will probably never be done...- bfg]

Sources for this story include: www.eurekalert.org; www.vancouversun.com.

http://www.naturalnews.com/028328_acetaminophen_asthma.html

"Acetaminophen has been shown to deplete the compound glutathione from lung tissue. Glutathione is a very important antioxidant that can limit lung tissue inflammation. Also, there is a direct relationship between glutathione levels and premature aging."

"Acetaminophen-containing products (Tylenol, Midol, Alka-Seltzer Plus, Vanquish, etc.) result in over 100,000 calls a year to poison control centers, 560,000 visits to emergency facilities, 260,000 hospitalizations, and 450 deaths. From 1996 to 1998 the average annual deaths directly attributed to acetaminophen averaged approximately 458."

"Confidential documents revealed that the FDA has purposely avoided addressing the dangers of acetaminophen to avoid offending Johnson and Johnson (the dominant marketer of acetaminophen products) and the pharmaceutical industry. (BMJ 02;325:678)

"The regulating authorities in the United Kingdom recognized that they were having the same problems, and required that acetaminophen be blister-packed instead of sold as bottles of loose tablets. Their research indicated that individuals would be less likely to overdose when the medication was packaged differently. By simply repackaging the acetaminophen, they have significantly reduced the number of drug-related poisonings, liver transplantations, and deaths. (RJM 01;322:1203-7)

"I doubt that any such thing will happen in the U.S., simply because the change in packaging resulted in UK sales of acetaminophen products dropping from $123 billion to $84 billion.

"Thus, although 50 million Americans take some form of acetaminophen for pain each week, the FDA proceeds as if the known side effects, such as immune suppression, hearing loss, liver damage, and even death, are all acceptable risks for a pain reliever."

http://altmedangel.com/asthma.htm 

I wrote a blog about this on this website. Connects Tylenol and amoxicillin with asthma.

You noticed that one of the side effects is immune suppression? Is that what you want for your child when he is sick? Depress his immune system? Or for you?

Tylenol is usually not necessary to use. You can reduce your child's fever with more liquid and wiping him down with a cool washcloth. Fevers are the body's method of increasing white blood cell count to fight an infection. So it is only the high fevers that you want to bring down.

But it is also antibiotics that play a role in causing asthma in adults and children.

"Workers manufacturing antibiotics can get compensation if they become asthmatic. The medical profession calls this professional asthma."

http://movie.teacup.com/search?kw=ANTIBIOTICS

"..should you care about this if asthma does not run in your family? For the last quarter century, asthma has been increasing rapidly in the industrialized world and has become one of the most important chronic illnesses of children.

It's unlikely that this recent increase has come from changes in children's genes. Instead, changes in diet, activity, and environmental exposures could all contribute.

A number of studies have suggested a link between antibiotic use and asthma. But is it that children's tendency toward asthma causes more respiratory infections and the need for more antibiotics? Or that greater antibiotic use can trigger asthma?

To answer this question, the Study of Asthma, Genes, and the Environment has been following 13,116 children born in 1995. The results of the study were published in the June 2007 Chest.

It looks like the antibiotic use can trigger asthma . probably by altering our internal environments by killing beneficial bacteria in the gut that are needed for optimum immune development.

In this study, the children who received antibiotics in the first year of life were more likely to have developed asthma by age 7 . whether or not the antibiotics were for respiratory infections.

Those who received more than four courses of antibiotics before the first birthday were about 1.5 times more likely to end up with asthma than their peers. The effect was strongest for broad spectrum antibiotics. The connection was clearest for children without a strong family history of asthma.

http://blogs.drgreene.com/blog/2007/06/12/the-asthma-antibiotics-link/

This should inspire confidence in the pharmaceutical companies... (I'm joking)... this was in this morning's newspaper:

"McNeil Consumer Health Care, a division of Johnson & Johnson, recalled more than 43 products, including liquid Tylenol, Motrin, Zyrtec and Benadryl last week. Some of the products might contain a higher concentration of active ingredient than is specified, others might contain inactive ingredients that don't meet internal testing requirements, and others might contain "tiny particles," according to a company news release.

"There have been no reports of children being sickened or dying because of these issues..."

"...Besides using another product, parents also can cool a child with a wet cloth or give cool beverages to try to lower the temperature, he said." - [So why not follow this advice and don't use the pharmaceuticals!?-bfg]

Source: Columbus Dispatch 5/4/2010 "Little info on recall of child medications"

Where was the quality control at the company? How can so many different products have something wrong? I could understand one product being recalled or several products being recalled for the same reason. But here are many products being recalled for different reasons.

And how was it that they finally caught on to there being a problem?

You aren't entitled to know what the "tiny particles" are but you shouldn't be concerned if you already gave your child some of the medicine just because he didn't have an immediate reaction?

Let's see... food allergies.... first the child becomes sensitized but has no reaction .... then upon second exposure months later the child has a severe allergic reaction and nearly dies... Yes, there is no reason to be concerned about children not having immediate reactions to a crappily made drug or other pharmaceutical product.

And some of you wonder why I seem so anti-drug? My only question to you is - Why aren't you?