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.
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.