Acetaminophen associated with risk of hearing loss: A safety alert

There has been recent news of association between acetaminophen and risk of hearing loss. Does it raise the bar of safety against indiscriminate use of the drug? National Institute of Health (NIH), USA, funded two prospective studies, in which the participants were educated health professionals and nurses, who used acetaminophen, ibuprofen and aspirin frequently and reported hearing loss if any through detailed questionnaires.[1,2] These studies put the hitherto considered safe drug acetaminophen in the spotlight for its clear association with incidence of hearing loss in the study participants. It was seen that the risk increased with increase in intake or increase in frequency of use of the aforementioned drugs. This finding has an interesting prospect in our country, where acetaminophen is the most commonly used over-the- counter analgesic and antipyretic. The question is how safe acetaminophen is?