The deadly danger of over-the-counter paracetamol

Paracetamol is the leading cause of fulminant hepatitis in the world, a massive destruction of the liver requiring an emergency transplant. Therapeutic doses of 4 g over 24 hours can be enough to cause fatal liver damage in people at risk or suffering from chronic alcoholism. Christophe Bureau, from the French Association for the Study of the Liver, thus recalled that it killed 400 people in the United States in 2009.