Even the best drugs have imperfect chances of working for any one person. Asthma drugs work in about 60 percent of patients. Migraine drugs are effective in only about half of cases. Drugs for Alzheimer’s disease work in about 30 percent of patients. And those are exceptional results compared to cancer drugs, which at best work about 25 percent of the time.

and

But acetaminophen can be a profoundly dangerous drug. For some people, it is pure poison. Acetaminophen is the most common cause of liver failure in the United States, where about 50 percent of cases are attributed to acetaminophen toxicity, according to a 2005 study. This risk has been well known for more than a decade and has generally been associated with failing to follow the directions, taking too much acetaminophen, or combining the pain reliever with alcohol.

from The Atlantic piece, The Wonder Drug Myth.

When I worked construction it was not uncommon to see other constructioneers, especially the masons with their heavy loads, downing Tylenol Extra Strength like a two year old with a bag of candy. Over the counter drugs are frightfully abused – either through over or under-dosing. The direction that one can take twice the recommended amount for the first dose doesn’t help at all, nor does the ever-increasing amount of the drug available – not just in every corner store, but more and more packed into each pill.

One of the masons went through a large bottle of extra-strength Tylenol every few weeks. He most assuredly also drank, given his personality and prodigious girth. I don’t know how quickly acetaminophen leaves your liver, but it takes longer the more you ingest. Even if he wasn’t planning on mixing the drug with the other drug he did so, unconsciously, incautiously. He had a compressed spinal disc from some accident or poor lifting habits and drugged the pain away instead of getting the problem fixed which “cost too much.” The economic mind of the blue collar worker is several potential books and studies – suffice for now to say he made more than enough if he wouldn’t eat fast food and drink it all away (not to mention always buying brand name Tylenol!).

But is this really new news? We abuse our alcohol and cigarettes, our television watching, out food. We let our bodies rot away while we still inhabit them instead of forcing that fate off into the future as much as possible. We’re so self-absorbed that we ignore all contrary evidence of hair loss, waist expansion, loss of youth, lack of exercise, tooth decay, etc etc etc.

And we always want the wonder drug to take away the pain, not to fix the problems – many of which are psychological and emotional. Drugs that are effectual, changing the effect of our causes, instead of affectual, altering our emotional plane. Better still would be self-improvement, altering the root causes of our problems out of existence – the compressed discs and fear and distaste at what we’ve become.

We don’t want to be “better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster.” We want to be happier, skinnier, smoother, guilt-free, low-cholesterol, high-energy, regular, richer, and well-dressed and coiffeured – everything shiny and pleasant – so we can continue to consume and consume and consume.

O brave new world that has such people in it.

Mistah Kurtz, he dead.
A penny for the Old Guy