Mr. Paxton filed the suit against Johnson & Johnson, which sold Tylenol for decades, and Kenvue, a spinoff company that has sold the drug since 2023.
The Texas lawsuit claims that the companies knowingly withheld evidence from consumers about Tylenol’s links to autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. The suit also claims that Kenvue was created to shield Johnson & Johnson from liability over Tylenol.
This lawsuit is the first by a state that seizes on Mr. Trump’s allegations that the use of acetaminophen products like Tylenol during pregnancy could cause neurodevelopmental disorders. The issue has been a longstanding concern among some followers of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s top health official, but the idea gained traction with Mr. Trump’s remarks.
The first individual officially diagnosed with autism was Donald Triplett in 1943. Dr. Kanner (The Dr. who diagnosed him) had noted Triplett’s symptoms, such as social withdrawal and an insistence on sameness, as early as 1938. While not diagnosed as autism, there are historical accounts of individuals with similar characteristics, such as the “Wild Boy of Aveyron” in the late 1700s and Hugh Blair of Borgue in the 18th century.
Tylenol was introduced in 1955.
While autism absolutely existed prior to the brand “Tylenol”, acetaminophen has been around since 1878 and used as a pain/fever reducer since 1893.
Just a reminder that Europe had the concept of “Changelings” for 2,000 years, where babies that suddenly changed and became difficult or antisocial were thought to have been replaced by a fairy. These babies were then left in the woods to “return them to the fairies”
This practice has been documented for thousands of years.
Autistic people have existed for thousands of years, just now we don’t call them changelings and abandon them in the forest.
now we don’t call them changelings and abandon them in the forest.
Bobby Brainworm enters the chat…
“A causes B” doesn’t imply that B is only caused by A, so this is pointless to bring up
That being said, RFK is a colossal idiot and the Tylenol-autism thing is a pretty clear-cut case of correlation≠causation.
I’m honestly doubting that there’s even correlation here.
On the other hand, there does seem to be correlation between older mothers having autistic children. I suspect the mothers have children when they are older because they have undiagnosed autism (that they then pass to their children through genetics), rather than their age causing autism in their children.
You would use facts to try and confuse us. BUT ME ARE SMART!
I hope Texans enjoy having their taxpayer dollars wasted. Because that’s what they’ve voted for, and that’s all this will do, because acetaminophen absolutely the fuck does not cause autism
Because that’s what they’ve voted for
The joke of Texas Politics is that we’ve got Reagan Republicans on the right and Dixiecrat Democrats on the ahem left. Then we’re told to pick our poison. If you’re waiting for Congressman Henry Cuellar and Mayor John Whitmire to save you, then you’ll be waiting a long time.
There are plenty of genuinely good and gracious people in my state. Come down to Houston and help “Food Not Bombs” hand out meals to the homeless as fast as we can, before the HPD can knock over our tables and drag the volunteers off in handcuffs. Come join the Women’s March that filled the streets of downtown. We have them ever year. Or join the local DSA that’s been crusading to unionize the retail sectors and boycott IDF-affiliated terrorist organizations for over a decade.
Or just stay for the electoralism, where you can wait in line for seven hours to cast a ballot and get arrested at the end of it. The idea that “this is what we voted for” is a fucking lie. We’re occupied territory. About as free to govern ourselves as any Hawaiian native protesting the United Fruit Company or Okinawa resident getting raped by a US serviceman.
Pretty much sums up TX politics. Criminals run the state
The joke of Texas Politics is that we’ve got Reagan Republicans on the right and Dixiecrat Democrats on the ahem left. Then we’re told to pick our poison.
I hear perfection is the enemy of ‘better’, but don’t let that stop you from incremental improvement more than it has.
I hear perfection is the enemy of ‘better’
Houston police called ICE on woman reporting crash, despite claims they aren’t cooperating
An event for GOP Congressman Dan Crenshaw will have a special guest: Democratic Mayor John Whitmire
Then-Sen. John Whitmire restored quorum in 2003, allowing mid-century GOP redistricting of Texas
:-/
We’ve had two whole generations of people using acetaminophen during pregnancy. Why have we not seen a massive uptick in autism to match? After accounting for increased screening and changes in definition and attribution, there’s a slight rise in autism rates that doesn’t align at all with acetaminophen use.
And where are the J&J studies showing that the supposed link was known to that particular company?
They’d do much better targeting plastic and PFAS manufacturers, as their products are known to cause the cellular mutations that can lead to cancer and autism.
We have seen a massive uptick. That’s the whole problem. In 1970 the rate was 1:10,000 and now it’s 1:30
But the reason for the massive uptick is because we understand autism better and can diagnose it easier. But idiots don’t understand that and assume something must be making more autistic kids than before.
Paracetamol also causes left handed-ness
And global warming.
It turned me into a newt!
A newt?
I got better.
Burn her!
Correct. So many people are only being diagnosed as adults with autism now precisely because they were never diagnosed as children because we didn’t even really have it defined at that time and didn’t understand the full scope of the condition. It’s not that they “became” autistic, it’s that our definition and understanding of it evolved to include them retrospectively. Tylenol did not cause this. Understanding did.
Not to mention, we have tons of documentation of people behaving and expressing in ways that would now be diagnosed as ASD, prior to ASD existing as a diagnosis
andacetaminophen. Explain that.Which creates the question. If the spectrum of autism is so wide and common does that mean autism is not a disorder or condition but just one of the many common traits of humans but some people (much like athleticism) have a stronger ability?
I guess that would depend on whether or not it is an evolutionary advantage. I can see it, in some niches, and especially in pre-industrial era. I think the same is true of ADHD.
I get that that sounds crass or even eugenecistic (?), but that’s, kinda, how it is. Traits that are considered advantageous are gifts; traits that are considered disadvantageous are considered disorders.
The same could be said of athleticism, if there’s some generic mutation that i.e. makes muscle mass develop rapidly, I could easily see that as being a marker for heart disease or various types of cancer, making hyperathleticism a disorder.
But I guess you could say that that’s also on a spectrum.
Kinda reminds me how in ancients Scandinavian some people with mental illness were either seer’s or seen as gifted by the gods. Nowadays we call it schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.
So autism is just a human condition and the spectrum includes ALL people?
No, it’s just more common than previously thought. It’s still a developmental disorder where the brain didn’t form normally.
“Developmental Disorder” refers to a child’s development after birth, not before. ASD is a developmental disorder yes, but afaik there’s no evidence it is caused by a prenatal issue, ex. the brain not “forming normally”.
Neurotypically, there is no “normal”, there’s only “does it cause issues”. My understanding is that, so far, it just seems like some human brains have ASD, and the spectrum is a measure of how much it causes them issues (more specifically, is a measure of how much assistance they need to function). But there’s nothing “abnormal” about having ASD any more than it’s “abnormal” to be born tone deaf.
You are approaching this all wrong.
It’s not about evidence. It’s not about science.
It’s about what feels good
I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness
I will always upvote The Demon-Haunted World. Should be required reading for every adult.
If you’re in high school or college, read this book!
It would certainly result in a lot fewer so-called “adults” who have an Imaginary Friend in the Sky
What gets me is that studies show that autism is highly genetic.
In identical twins, ASD in one usually leads to a diagnosis of ASD in the other 96% of the time. Which lines up with a high affinity to genetic factors.
In fraternal twins we have seen, a 16% when a given sex ASD is diagnosed leading to an opposite sex ASD diagnosis. A 36% when a female ASD is diagnosed leading to a female ASD diagnosis. And a 31% when a male ASD is diagnosed leading to a male ASD diagnosis.
This lines up with genetic factors from a particular parent that are expressed with the gonosomes. That it affects higher in women is a hint that it may be within the X complex gonosomes. If Tylenol played a serious role in the development of those things then we’d see different data here. That opposite sex fraternal is nearly half the amount for same sex fraternal, really hammers home the notion that we’re dealing with something genetic. But at the same time we don’t know what genes.
The core argument with RFK is oxidative stress. But literally everything causes oxidative stress, not getting the correct amount of sleep causes oxidative stress. And that’s the bigger issue with the studies that RFK has forwarded about Tylenol. Their argument is a confusion of causation and correlation.
And this has been pointed out by a ton of concerned scientist. That’s not to dismiss the data that RFK has provided, it is pointing out that the data they are using doesn’t point to the conclusion they are indicating directly.
I can imagine that Texas could possibly prevail on their case given that even scientist, including the ones RFK cites, aren’t 100% sure that Tylenol has any role in any of this. This isn’t the first time some group or even a State sued over poor science, but it’s really frustrating because Texas has a duty to provide for their citizens and here they are using a poor conclusion to some data to do something that’s no in the interest of their citizens.
get outta here with your science. Drinking Mountain Dew prevents gayness.
There was alsoa few years in the 80s when acetominophen was recalled and no one used it beacuse of fear. No effect in autism rates. Just like lower vaccine uptake last decade has not affected autism rates. We let the idiots do the experiment.
All these issues already existed before acetaminophen was even discovered. This is the result of letting incompetence go wild
Many countries avoid this drug because of its strong liver toxicity. No differences in autism rates.
they should go ahead with everything and disprove all this nonsense in court
I mean, you’d like to think courts are a place where evidence is reviewed and truth is ratified. But… glances at the US Fifth Circuit…
Let me start by saying, “Fuck Paxton”. It is very convenient that J&J spun off just Tylenol into a different company about a year ago. No real reason except corporate word salad. This could get interesting.
I like how corporations are people that can legally re identify as something else on a whim.
I went to my bank one time when there was an issue with my mortgage. They weren’t honoring part of their original terms, so I went in to talk to them.
They’d recently bought some other local banks and rebranded the whole thing.
I go talk to the mortgage manager and say you’re not honoring your terms, and the lady looks at me and says that deal was with the old bank.
I said you are literally the same person I made this deal with, and if you aren’t the same bank, why do I still owe you money?
They had been a really great local bank my whole life, and after that, I’ve never looked at them the same or trusted them all that much ever again. Nearly every business here is some mega chain, and it burns me to see the remaining local companies turn into something just as bad.
That argument is legal horseshit btw, they are 100% bound by the terms of the contract. If they fuck around, it’s time to you to seek out a good attorney and sue them if they breach the contract.
It thankfully wasn’t anything directly monetary. It was basically an administrative oversight in removing a portion of another property used as collateral. It resolved itself not too long afterward, just not on the originally promised timeline. All the more reason really I took it so personally.
Our whole family has banked with them for 3 generations, including 2 small businesses and back when they were cool we’d get greated by our names as we walked in the door, even for a few years after things went all direct deposit and I rarely had to go in. Then they got bigger and stopped doing all the nice things and events and such for customer appreciation, lots of the old staff left, and then they act crappy to me over something that really didn’t affect either of us in the grand scheme of things.
They’re still not a bad bank, but that day permanently changed our relationship to me.
It can void the mortgage in some cases, letting them walk away with a free house minus what they already paid.
“oh so we’re good then, I’ll catch you later”
A luxury not afforded to real people, too.
Is that why Paxton’s face is f’d up?
Doesn’t this mean that plaintiffs will need to demonstrate that there actually is such a risk?
Defense: Correlation is not causation.
What do you mean, “demonstrate”? Dept of
dieinghealth has said so, what more proof do you need?
So they hid the risks of insane conspiracy theories dreamed up by the delusional?
It’s a red Herring to shield all corporate wrong doing in the future.
always champions of the dumbest fucking initiatives and scummiest bullshit
Oh God this is where we are.
🤦♂️
It can only good happen.
