While an underlying cause for autism remains elusive, elected officials with no scientific or medical background whatsoever have singled out a culprit: Tylenol.
By now, you’re probably familiar with Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s baseless claim that Tylenol usage by pregnant women is to blame for autism. This was all affirmed by a press conference in September, during which President Donald Trump rambled on about Tylenol and autism, and attempted several times to pronounce the word “acetaminophen.”
In watching that press conference, it occurred to me that Tylenol was cited as the likely culprit because of the issues that Trump had pronouncing the aforementioned word correctly. Several companies, after all, manufacture acetaminophen, under a variety of different brand names.
Now we have our own Attorney General Ken Paxton joining the fray. Last Tuesday, Paxton filed a suit in the District Court of Panola County accusing the manufacturers of Tylenol of deceptive marketing, that the product has been marketed to pregnant mothers despite (unproven) claims that early exposure to acetaminophen increases risks for autism and other disorders.
In the suit, Paxton alleges that Johnson & Johnson and Kenvue violated Texas consumer protection laws by hiding a danger posed by acetaminophen to fetuses and young children and further alleges that Johnson & Johnson committed fraud in transferring liabilities from Tylenol to Kenvue to shield its assets against lawsuits.
Folks, when I received the email from Paxton’s office about the suit, I almost didn’t read it. The number of suits filed by our AG’s office in the name of virtue signaling is a head-spinning quantity, but the subject line of the news release caught me. I read it and shook my head, thinking, “What an incredibly stupid timeline we inhabit.”
Paxton said in his news release that “Big Pharma betrayed America by profiting off of pain and pushing pills regardless of the risks,” and further states that the suit’s goal is to hold “Big Pharma accountable for poisoning people.”
While Big Pharma has done irrevocable harm to this country, and several class action suits have stuck it to them, Tylenol is not the problem, and what Paxton is doing is another obvious example of political theater masquerading this time as public health advocacy.
Paxton seems hell-bent now on proving what is some sort of phantom correlation that has widely been dismissed as ludicrous, but to what end? As of this writing, even RFK, Jr., himself, has largely eschewed his own claims.
While many experts have weighed in publicly since this debacle began with RFK, Jr., that any science showing a link between autism and Tylenol is unproven, acetaminophen is actually one of the few painkiller options available to expectant mothers that can not only treat pain and fever, but possibly stave off real risks to both the developing fetus and the mother. According to one such expert, Dr. Steven J. Fleischman, who is the president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, pain and fever can be harmful to pregnant women when untreated.
“Maternal fever, headaches as an early sign of preeclampsia, and pain are all managed with the therapeutic use of acetaminophen, making acetaminophen essential to the people who need it,” Fleischman said in a statement he released to media in September.
Fleischman also dismissed, in his statement, the “harmful and confusing message” caused by the autism/Tylenol rhetoric and further stated that the conditions treated by acetaminophen during pregnancy “are far more dangerous than any theoretical risks and can create severe morbidity and mortality for the pregnant person and the fetus.”
The problem with the general public is that established science is boring. Addressing and discussing crumbling healthcare infrastructure, mental health crises and the lack of maternal care in rural areas is boring. Those topics aren’t tailored to the attention spans conflict-addicted social media habitues. So why is Paxton quixotically chasing this bit of discredited hogwash? It’s likely spelled o-p-p-o-r-t-u-n-i-s-m.
You see, gentle readers, you must remember: Warren Kenneth Paxton, Jr., is seeking the seat occupied by John Cornyn, in Washington, D.C. When Paxton declared his candidacy in April, he touted himself as a more conservative option than the incumbent, who is seeking a fifth term. By buying into the Trump administration’s rhetoric on Tylenol and autism, Paxton is further trying to endear himself to the president in order to get that all-important endorsement, which could cause him to best Cornyn in the March GOP primary.
Be that as it may, and my hunch is strong on that theory, it’s just absurd on so many levels. I could stand on a soapbox and rail against the evils of Big Pharma, but Tylenol is one of the most trusted and studied over-the-counter medications in the entire world.
When Texas’s top cop goes after it with a high-profile lawsuit to grab headlines and, likely, a presidential endorsement, the rhetoric gives legitimacy to pseudoscience and works to instill fear in the public.
The deeper problem here is not merely scientific ignorance, but the political exploitation of it. Lawsuits like this play to a certain populist instinct, in which “Big Pharma” is cast as an all-purpose villain and complex medical issues are reduced to soundbites and suspicion.
The cost of this stunt is large. It works to undermine public trust in legitimate medical science and creates confusion among parents who are simply trying to make responsible health choices for their children. That’s not to mention the waste of taxpayer money and other resources that could be going to actual public health initiatives.
As our state’s metrics in healthcare access ranks near the bottom, nationwide, with a large percentage of Texans either uninsured or under-insured. A ridiculous lawsuit against the makers of a trusted over-the-counter painkiller, with a bunk theory at its core, does nothing to help those people. Instead, it just continues to feed a political narrative designed to score points instead of providing solutions.
At the end of the day, Ken Paxton’s Tylenol lawsuit is about spectacle, with the state’s justice mechanisms co-opted as a tool for misinformation. In a day and age when truth often seems under siege, such grandstanding as this is not only foolish, it is dangerous.
