Does Tylenol alleviate pain with minimal damage to the body’s vital organs? Let’s dive in and discuss the effects of Acetaminophen with Dr. William Lee, a professor of internal medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School. For over twenty years, Lee has researched the connection between acetaminophen and various organs, most commonly the liver.

More about Dr. Lee …

Dr. Lee has served as Professor of Internal Medicine and Bioengineering at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas since 1990, holding the Meredith Mosle Chair in Liver Diseases in his honor. After graduation from Amherst College and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University, NYC, he completed his internal medicine residency at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. He then began a liver (hepatology) research fellowship at Kings College Hospital, London, in 1973 where he first encountered patients with liver failure due to acetaminophen toxicity. Much of his clinical and research interests have been related to acute liver failure, a rare disease that is most frequently caused in Europe and North America by acetaminophen overdoses. The title of his talk will be: “Acetaminophen (APAP): Poison or Panacea? Fifty+ Years of APAP Research.”

Since, he has served on the faculties of Columbia University, the Medical University of South Carolina and The Ohio State University. At MUSC from 1980-1990, for the final three years he was Chief of the Gastroenterology Division.

Dr. Lee’s research interests have included viral hepatitis and drug-induced liver injury, and he has characterized many of the clinical features of acetami-nophen (Tylenol®) liver injury. In 1997, he founded the Acute Liver Failure Study Group (ALFSG), a national network to study this orphan disease, funded through 2023 by the National Institutes of Health. He currently continues as an active faculty member at UTSW including clinical rounds at Parkland Hospital and mentoring young faculty, residents and students in clinical research.

Dr. Lee is married (56 years) to Elizabeth M. (Liza) Lee, former Headmistress of The Hockaday School (1990-2004 and 2015-2017). They have three children, Matthew, Edmund (Ted) and Caroline, and 5 grandchildren.