Tylenol: Evidence Mounts Linking Acetaminophen and Asthma - NYTimes.com

December 20, 2011

Acetaminophen may mediate oxidative stress and neurotoxicity in autism.

Ghanizadeh A.

Med Hypotheses. 2011 Dec 8.

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Studies Suggest an Acetaminophen-Asthma Link

By CHRISTIE ASCHWANDEN

nd-asthma.html

*THE HYPOTHESIS*

/Acetaminophen increases the risk of childhood asthma./

/*THE INVESTIGATOR*/

/Dr. T. McBride, Akron/

/Children's Hospital./

The sharp worldwide increase in childhood asthma over the past 30 years

has long perplexed researchers, who have considered explanations as

varied as improved hygiene and immunizations. Over the last decade,

however, a new idea has emerged.

The asthma epidemic accelerated in the 1980s, some researchers have

noted, about the same time that aspirin was linked to Reye's syndrome in

children. Doctors stopped giving aspirin to children with fevers, opting

instead for acetaminophen. In a paper published in The ls of Allergy

and Asthma Immunology in 1998, Dr. Arthur Varner, then a fellow in the

immunology training program at the University of Wisconsin School of

Medicine, argued that the switch to acetaminophen might have fueled the

Since then, more than 20 studies have produced results in support of his

theory, including a large analysis of data on more than 200,000 children

that found an increased risk of asthma among children who had taken

acetaminophen. In November, Dr. T. McBride, a pediatrician at Akron

Children's Hospital in Ohio, published a paper in the journal Pediatrics

arguing that the evidence for a link between acetaminophen and asthma is

now strong

enough for doctors to recommend that infants and children who have

asthma (or are at risk for the disease) avoid acetaminophen.

Dr. McBride based his assertion on several lines of evidence....

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