It's a meta-analysis that considered a bunch of individual studies, their effect size, and their quality. It claims that Tylenol use has increased alongside a 20-fold increase in autism rates, suggesting causation, and recommends immediate efforts to reduce Tylenol use during pregnancy.

One objection that I've seen is that the lead author, Dr. Baccarelli, has a conflict of interest because he was an expert witness in a lawsuit about acetaminophen and neurodevelopmental disorders. If you think about it though, someone knowledgeable enough to write this paper is exactly the kind of person you'd want to serve as an expert witness.

So 10 times the typical dose is when you have overdose effects. (basically 20 pills per day vs 2 pills per day).

Not your "wildly unsafe at slightly above usage levels" AT ALL (as someone posted on here)

This is not harmless - this might cause someone to take more dangerous painkillers when acetaminophen (tylenol) might have safely helped them. The autism stuff is plainly false and disproved.

It's one of the most commonly used medicines in the UK - and certainly the most popular painkiller.

YouGov even did a survey confirming that - https://ygo-assets-websites-editorial-emea.yougov.net/docume...

The safety aspects of it are not something that gets raised in the UK much - other than suicide attempts, which are going to happen no matter what medicine you use.

Probably the biggest risk comes from people not realising that other medicines (e.g. for cold and flu) often include it, so they double up on a dose.

But it turns out there may actually be some emerging evidence to support this. This recent Harvard meta-analysis [1] from just last month looked at 46 different studies and suggested that there may actually be something happening here although it's not conclusive. Correlation but not yet causation.

Nobody should be making policy on this yet, but it's the kind of thing that I would allocate some research dollars to if I hadn't just fired all of the competent researchers.

1 - https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/using-acetaminophen-during-pre...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reye_syndrome

Any volunteers?

I think folate supplementation is generally already a fairly standard recommendation during pregnancy, since deficiency is linked to significant neural tube defects during pregnancy (eg CDC [1]). It's at least interesting that folate-derived medicines may also treat symptoms.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/folic-acid/about/index.html#:~:text=Abou...

https://www.mountsinai.org/about/newsroom/2025/mount-sinai-s...

Whereas the current administration is all about loyalty over facts. They even make the meteorological employees do a loyalty test now so they'll follow the narrative and not the science.

Data does appear to show a possible link, definitely at the least warrants further research.

But at least they figured out autism by September, right?

Paracetamol/acetaminophen (the active ingredient in tylenol) is super toxic to the liver. Lots of people overdose on it, some by accident and some deliberately. As little as FOUR GRAMS can cause jaundice and fuck up your liver. If you have a fever, taking 1 gram every couple of hours might seem entirely reasonable, but it can kill you.

Regardless of any autism links, it's good to be careful with this stuff.

I wouldn’t entirely rule out there being environmental factors, but from the data I could gather it seems that acetaminophen usage has decreased in pregnancy over the last several decades in the US, while autism has increased.

This all seems to go back to the boomer generation believing the world was simpler when they grew up and that it was somehow ruined. That may be true about some things but the reality of their generation is they had no idea what people were going through, and didn’t have the language to describe it

- going after quacks who promote bleach, horse dewormers (maybe that's the problem), and raw milk

- adopt the precautionary principle

- approve EU sunscreen compounds without animal testing and banning reef/human unsafe ones

- leave science to scientists

- increase regulatory oversight over food manufacturing, additive, and supply chain regulation so there aren't canyons of non-enforcement or exclusions between FDA and USDA

Or, maybe, this is really radical... find someone else competent to do the job.

How much are people willing to bet that the incidence of autism will remain unchanged and the administration will disavow everything.

“Nobody knew autism was so complicated.” — future Trump, probably.

I remember an old study linking ultrasounds to lefthandedness. It was legit. Families with access to ultrasounds lived in countries/areas where lefthandedness was more culturally accepted, places where it was not drilled out of kids. The study was correct, but anyone touting it as causation was totally incorrect.

Fyi, sharks are way more likely to attack people with australian accents. Never go swimming with an auzzi.

I'll take RFK being the stopped clock on this over him causing yet more harm to the medical community and to Americans' health.

News outlets: no credible scientific evidence.

Uh oh spaghettios. The more the leftwing "resists" the more their "science" self-image will disconnect with reality. Like most things with this administration, I think that's the real goal.

[1] 14 August 2025 in BMC Environmental Health. 27 of 46 studies reported a positive association between prenatal acetaminophen and neurodevelopmental disorders like autism and ADHD.

Tylenol was introduced in 1955. Autism was first scientifically documented in 1926. If Tylenol causes autism, how did those parents in the 1920s get their hands on it?

Also, wouldn't there been a clear link between Tylenol sales and the occurrence of autism? Where is the data showing that the adoption of Tylenol in the 1960s resulted in a rise in autism, and that the "rise" of autism in the 1990s is linked to an increase in Tylenol use?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thalidomide_scandal

Tylenol only helps for minor aches and pains that frankly, pregnant mothers should just deal with for the good of their unborn child. The risk is not worth it.

RFK Jr. isn't right on everything, but he's not wrong on everything either and it's refreshing seeing someone head HHS that isn't in big pharma's pocket for a change.

https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2019/03/30/acetaminoph...

As long as autism, there can be no causative link. Millions have autism, billions take paracetamol. Autism has, like its cousin schizophrenia, a strong genetic-familial basis. Hardly any environmental factor increases the risk so much to be worrisome.