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.
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.
Don’t discount the internet coming into existence and more and more social isolation in developed nations.
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.
Yeah. People with ADHD, Autism, etc…we get special powers. The problem is, we aren’t built for this world. It’s too damn busy and overstimulating. I just want to live in a cave and pick berries. I bet I’d be good at that.
Preaching to the choir on that one, got diagnosis with autism when I was like 3. But yeah throw me on the woods and once I get past the initial discomfort I’d probably do alright.
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.
No, autism is a Developmental disorder.
And it’s pretty well known that there are differences in how the brain forms in autistic people.
Please re-read. I said ASD is Developmental Disorder. My correction was that you are misusing the term Developmental Disorder to mean Prenatal Development. Your second link agrees with my correction.I think this is my bad. You said “the brain didn’t form normally” and I interpreted that to mean prenatal. But you are referring to during youth, which the paper is about. TIL, thanks 👍
But I will still say, “abnormal” doesn’t mean “bad” here, which the right seem to be conflating in all their rhetoric. As I understand it, ASD is just an evolutionary mutation. The extent to which it helps/hinders each person is up to their environment. And the right, by saying ASD is abnormal and therefore bad, are creating a hindering environment.
I mean, it’s literally a disability. I’m not disparaging those with ASD, my wife has it and I’m a bit on it (mostly ADHD). But I definitely won’t pretend that it doesn’t make life more challenging by default.
You are approaching this all wrong.
It’s not about evidence. It’s not about science.
It’s about what feels good
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.