According to Medicine Professor Paul Stolley, a popular painkiller found in such drugs as Tylenol may be linked with kidney disease. In a recent editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine, Stolley claims that acetaminophen, the painkiller found in Tylenol, should be researched as a cause of kidney disease. Still, Stolley insists he is not attempting to cause a scare for Tylenol users. "I don't want to raise an alarm," Stolley said last week. "I just want to raise some questions that need to be investigated." Officials at Johnson and Johnson, the company which makes Tylenol, did not return several calls seeking comment last week. Acetaminophen is closely related to phenacetin, another painkiller which was taken off the U.S. market in 1982 for its link to kidney disease. Stolley said the Tylenol painkiller is chemically similar to phenacetin and should be examined. When the deadly phenacetin is broken down by the body, it produces two byproducts, including acetaminophen. In his editorial Stolley said either phenacetin itself or one of its byproducts is toxic. Acetaminophen may be the toxic byproduct and should be researched, he said. "I am just calling for more research on the painkiller because of its link to phenacetin," Stolley said. Currently, no one at the University, including Stolley, is researching the Tylenol drug, and there aren't any plans for research in the future. Stolley said the editor of the New England Journal of Medicine asked him to write the editorial because he had published some information about the drug in the past. About 10 years ago, Stolley completed a small-scale study on acetaminophen when the drug was not commonly used, but the study was too small to prove any link to kidney disease. Only one national study has proved the link of kidney disease to acetaminophen. Published in 1989, the report found that adults who took the drug daily have a three times higher risk of developing kidney disease than non-frequent users. Currently, $300 million are spent annually on the painkiller acetaminophen.
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