Oct. 28 (UPI) — Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Tuesday that he’s sued the makers of Tylenol, alleging the medication can cause autism despite experts and studies saying there’s no clear link.
The lawsuit accuses Johnson & Johnson and Kenvue of “deceptively marketing” Tylenol — the main ingredient of which is acetaminophen, to pregnant mothers. A news release from Paxton’s office announcing the suit said the companies knew the active ingredient in the pain reliever can lead to a “significantly increased risk of autism and other disorders.”
“Big Pharma betrayed America by profiting off of pain and pushing pills regardless of the risks,” Paxton said. “These corporations lied for decades, knowingly endangering millions to line their pockets.
“Additionally, seeing that the day of reckoning was coming, Johnson & Johnson attempted to escape responsibility by illegally offloading their liability onto a different company.”
Paxton’s announcement comes a little over a month after the Trump administration held a news conference to link the over-the-counter pain reliever to an increased risk of autism. President Donald Trump, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services spoke at the White House announcement Sept. 22, citing a report from the Food and Drug Administration.
The FDA did not outright ban the use of Tylenol or any other form of acetaminophen.
The FDA is “strongly recommending that women limit Tylenol use during pregnancy unless medically necessary,” Trump said. “That’s, for instance, in cases of extremely high fever.”
Medical research hasn’t found a definitive cause for autism, but many doctors believe genetics and environmental influences play a role. Kennedy, however, has argued the country has an “autism epidemic” caused by “environmental toxins” such as Tylenol and vaccines.
Doctors typically recommend acetaminophen as the safest painkiller for women during pregnancy, citing the fact that there are no credible or consistent studies showing that the drug causes autism.
In the days after the Trump administration’s announcement, a number of international health organizations and groups representing medical professionals refuted the FDA’s statement, citing multiple studies and decades of data.
“Although some observational studies have suggested a possible association between prenatal exposure to acetaminophen (paracetamol) and autism, the evidence remains inconsistent,” WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said during a September press conference in Geneva.
An article posted by Johns Hopkins University said that studies that do appear to show a link between acetaminophen and autism fail to clearly find a cause-and-effect relationship between the two.
Brian Lee, an epidemiology professor at Drexel University, said the studies fail to account for other confounding factors. For instance, why might a pregnant woman take acetaminophen?
“It might look like there’s an association with acetaminophen, but really the association could just be reflecting the underlying infection that the person has,” he said.
Autism diagnoses rose by about 300% in the United States between 2000 and 2020, according to the Wendy Klag Center or Autism and Developmental Disabilities. The vice director of the organization, Christine Ladd-Acosta, told Johns Hopkins University that part of the increase is because there’s been a “broadened definition of Autism Spectrum Disorder,” which means more people fit the diagnosis.
“Second, there have been many widely successful public health programs that increased screening at wellness visits for children ages 18-24 months to look for signs of autism,” she said.
“Parents, caregivers and community members are also more aware of the symptoms, and autism is being more accepted in the community.”
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