Study: One Quarter of All Americans Take a Drug Every Week that Kills their Empathy

The Free Thought Project

 

Touted as a risk-free pain reliever, Tylenol sends as many as 78,000 people to the emergency room annually and results in 33,000 hospitalizations a year, according to federal data. The active ingredient in Tylenol, acetaminophen is also the leading cause of acute liver failure, according to data from an ongoing study funded by the National Institutes for Health.

In spite of most experts noting that Tylenol can be taken daily virtually free from danger, studies show that ingesting just a little bit more than the daily recommended dose of 4 grams of Tylenol over the course of a few days can result in severe illness and even death.

Aside from liver damage, overdose, severe illness, and death — a new study shows acetaminophen to effective kill human empathy.

The study, published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience (Mischkowski et al., 2016) found that Tylenol, or one of the other 600 different medications reduces people’s empathy for the pain and suffering of others.

Dr. Dominik Mischkowski, the study’s first author, explains:

“These findings suggest other people’s pain doesn’t seem as big of a deal to you when you’ve taken acetaminophen. Acetaminophen can reduce empathy as well as serve as a painkiller.”

The ability to understand and share the feelings with other humans is a crucial part of peace. The golden rule itself is a function derived from empathy. Remove human empathy and you remove a driving force behind humans treating each other with respect and dignity.

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