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Everyone has paracetamol in their medicine cabinet but misused, this drug can be dangerous or even deadly, as the case Naomi Musenga recalls, and is responsible for a hundred liver transplants each year
"Paracetamol is the best and the worst thing. It is an innocuous drug, very well tolerated in 99.999% of cases but becomes an extremely dangerous weapon when it is used outside the nails, "explains pharmacologist François Chast.
" It's like a kitchen knife : it is an effective and safe tool when you hold it by the handle, but if you are clumsy, you can cut yourself, "he adds.
Doliprane, Dafalgan, Efferalgan … Many drugs paracetamol are sold over the counter and commonly used for pain and fevers. But at too high doses, this substance can attack the liver.
The death of Naomi Musenga, on December 29 at 22 years old after being taunted on the phone by an operator of the Samu de Strasbourg, is "the consequence of a paracetamol intoxication absorbed by self-medication over several days," said Wednesday the prosecutor Yolande Renzi,
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), "a single dose of 10 to 15 grams is enough to cause life-threatening liver necrosis". This is why paracetamol is often used in suicides. The maximum dose is 3 grams per 24 hours, by spacing the catches .
"When you take 4 grams a day for several days, especially if you consume alcohol at the same time," 'is likely to cause a drug called fulminant hepatitis, that is to say radical quickly,' says Professor Chast
This is an emergency, which requires the administration of a molecule called N-acetylcysteine. Without prompt treatment, this liver condition can be fatal.
Attention to overdoses and drug mixtures
An overdose of paracetamol first causes "discrete signs of gastrointestinal irritation," according to the WHO.
They "are usually followed two days later by anorexia, nausea, malaise, abdominal pain, then progressive signs of hepatic insufficiency and, finally, of hepatic coma. "
" Each year in France, nearly a hundred liver transplants (about 1,200 in total, ed) are linked to paracetamol intoxication, "says Professor Chast. "This is a considerable proportion, all this for a misuse of a drug deemed harmless."
And even if one is vigilant, one can sometimes exceed the maximum dose without knowing it.
"There are 200 medicines which contain paracetamol, I have been a specialist of drugs for 50 years and I am unable to quote them all, "says Professor Jean-Paul Giroud.
" If you take two, for example one prescribed by a doctor and the other self-medication, you can find doses of over 4 grams per day. "
Professor Giroud advocates for better information to the general public on the potential dangers of paracetamol:" There has an information problem for which I have struggled for 40 years, but we can not say that the public authorities seize it. It's up to them to insist on that. "
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