I saw this story being discussed on the breakfast news this morning.
Deaths from paracetamol overdoses fell by 43% in England and Wales in the 11 years after the law on pack sizes was changed, according to a study.
There were a couple of talking heads claiming that 70 lives had been “saved” each year as a consequence of this absurd legislation. Given that this is a guess, no such claim can be legitimately made. Not least, because although those people might not have died as a consequence of paracetamol overdoses, they could just have easily hanged themselves or put their head on the railway line. Not dying from an overdose of paracetamol is not the same thing as “lives saved” as that is nothing more than an assertion with no facts to support it.
Also, near where we live, you could nip into Sainsbury’s and buy a couple of packs then go next door to Boots and then on to Lidl – that’s just short of 200 tablets. It’s what we do to ensure that we have a decent stock in the bathroom cabinet and I have enough with me when I’m travelling, because when I get a cluster headache, I need to take enough to keep me going when I’m out and about. I can stop and let the thing take its course at my leisure when I’m back home.
All that the 1998 legislation has done is place an inconvenience in the way of the consumer, thereby forcing us to find workarounds. We can no longer buy a bottle of 200 tablets. Okay, they want to play it that way, so can we. Our bathroom cabinet has enough paracetamol to kill both of us if we were so inclined. But, never mind, the hard of thinking have managed to “save” 70 lives a year.
And, of course, as is the case with interfering prodnoses, there is no such thing as enough. Indeed, we are not sufficiently overdosed with interference in our lives because, you see, “more needs to be done”. It always does.
Although a workaround is easily done I wonder why they really floated even the very idea of restricting mass-produced, extremely cheap, widely available and very effective pain relief. Just can’t help feeling it was a precursor.
Claims fairly recently that the treatments for certain cancers are worse than the cancer itself… well, hmmm… just makes me wonder…
I once got in to a standing argument with a prat in a shop when I wanted to buy 16 paracetamol and 16 ibuprofen. I had a very painful wrist injury at the time and the combination of the two gave me sufficient relief to be able to get on with my life. She misinterpreted the law to mean ‘you can only buy 16 pills at once’ rather than 16 of the same pills, and refused to sell me both. This is despite the fact that ibuprofen is relatively non toxic, they are safe in combination, and I’M A BLOODY ADULT! In the end I took neither, left the rest of my purchases on the checkout and drove to the next shop where I got exactly what I wanted. I wonder, in relation to the article on which you’ve commented, just how much of the decrease in harm relating to paracetamol is down to the availability of ibuprofen as an alternative? It only became available over the counter in the last 20 years. I would be most amused if the fall in numbers of paracetamol poisonings was inversely proportional to the number of ibuprofen overdoses. Let’s face it, the majority of paracetamol overdoses are the ‘cry for help’ type, so anyone wishing to make such a cry could just as easily get the attention they crave with a box of Nurofen, which might make them a bit sick, but won’t fry their liver or indeed kill them.
Starship, I have had the very same argument with someone in a local shop. It ended up with me doing the very same thing, and walking 100 yards to the local pharmacy which quite happily sold me the pills.
It’s worth bearing in mind that shops and their employees are risk averse due to sting operations carried out by Trading Standards who will criminalise the assistant who gets it wrong.
. . . and the manufacturers and retailers love the system since a pack of 16 costs far more (and presumably yields higher profits) per tablet than a bottle of 200. I’m amazed the learned academics putting together this report didn’t demand a minimum price of £1 per tablet for painkillers.
Don’t give ’em ideas…
Ibuprofens are becoming difficult to get in large packs.
Given that 32 paracetamol is actually more than sufficient to cause death (slowly and horribly from multiple organ failure),especially if taken with alcohol, it’s a nonsense anyway. All the rule prevents is some half-wit making a dramatic cry for help (so-called) with 200 pills and accidentally succeeding, rather than the identical scenario with 20+ pills. I always made a point of describing in detail the effects of an overdose to first year undergraduates and advised them to choose a different method of making a ‘cry for help’. That was after two students succeeded in doing away with themselves, with several days to regret it as they slowly declined in hospital.
I was taught by a medic that many girls would take 30 paracetamol, then tell the doctor at their bedside that they were sorry, and it was a cry for help, they felt fine, and could they go home now?
The doctor would have to explain that their liver was destroyed, and they were going to die slowly and in writhing agony over the next week, with their skin being black by the end. (He chose better words than that in front of them, obviously)
XX Also, near where we live, you could nip into Sainsbury’s and buy a couple of packs then go next door to Boots and then on to Lidle – XX
Used to amuse me in Sweden.
They have (Still????) banned homebrew beer.
SO. You are /were not allowed, to buy grain, sugar, and yeast in the same shop.
See old Granny Johansdottir running from shop to shop to buy her grain in one, her yeast in the other….etc.
(THIS was at the time of trying to price alcohol out of the market…..ring any bells?)
As per P T Barnum’s comment, the reduction in deaths may simply be the result of an increased awareness of the long and deeply unpleasant death that ensues – people may simply be choosing alternative suicide methods.
Also, if the source of the statistic was the NHS then it wouldn’t surprise me if it’s just statistical fraud by which some of the overdose deaths are now attributed to smoking or drinking (especially given that overdoses are frequently taken with alcohol). It’s certainly true that they automatically attribute a proportion of general liver disease cases to alcohol regardless of the actual individual patient details.
Seriously there was some cretin on R5 this morning who was advocating that even more needed to be done and that the way to do that was for further reduce dosage size or reduce the amount of active ingredient in each tablet.
I mean, FFS! what about the millions of the rest of us who need to clear a headache each year? Where the fuck do our needs count in the consideration of this moron?
Good comment about Ibuprofen
I much prefer it, if I have an infalmmation, of any sort, since a pain-killer does nothing for the cause, does it?
Agree re interfering bastards, though & jobsworths
Only yesterday I attempted to buy a combination of Nurofen and Ibuprofen from Tesco. Going through the self-service till, it actually flagged up what I was attempting to buy.
This was followed by the ‘self-service attendant’ telling me to wait whilst she got the pharmacist to speak with me…and off she trotted to the far end of the store….whilst I promptly left £60 odd of messages sitting in bags and walked out.
As mentioned above – interfering bastards.
I was refused more than two packs of Loperamide, anti diarrhoea medication,… makes you wonder what the ‘constipated themselves to death’ figures are.
Brace yourselves for far, far more of this crap.
The problem isn’t interfering busybodies as such, but the sue-happy morons who feel they have a right to blame other people for their wilful ignorance. (“How was I to know what taking 32 tablets would do to me?” Er, by reading the bloody leaflet in the box?*)
A lot of this is corporate arse-covering: they don’t want to be sued by idiots, but national governments insist on cosseting and helping the stupid blunder their way through life at the expense of those of us who actually understand the meaning of the word “sapiens” in our species’ own name.