But more research is needed to clarify this and the benefits of paracetamol use for fever control still outweigh the potential of later allergy development, said Julian Crane, the author of the report.
“The problem is that paracetamol is given quite liberally to young children,” he said. “There’s a lot of evidence suggesting that something is going on here. It’s not completely clear-cut, that’s the problem.”
The report is based on the New Zealand Asthma and Allergy Cohort Study, which investigated use of paracetamol for 505 infants and 914 five and six-year-olds. “The major finding is that children who used paracetamol before the age of 15 months (90 per cent) were more than three times as likely to become sensitised to allergens,” Crane said.