Misunderstanding The Dangers of Tylenol Use
Every so often – though it’s becoming much more frequent recently – the fractured nature of our sociopolitical climate causes more furor and confusion about various issues than they actually deserve.
Certainly part of this is due to how easy it is for someone to post on social media something so ridiculous and extreme, without any objective evidence with which to back up the claims. This practice makes it all too easy for the actual facts and truth of a topic to get lost in the process.
Those aligned with the far-right will post something with the typical (and frankly weak) accusation that the “left/libtards” are “hiding” something.
Those aligned with the far-left will post something and include a charge that the “Republicans” are either “hiding” something or just being “stupid Republicans.”
Confusing Conservatism
We’ve dealt in the past on this blog about how the current administration and its “MAGA” political movement does not actually bear resemblance to traditional conservatism and how it has “stolen” the traditional Republican party. The MAGA movement, though calling itself “Republican”, “conservative” and “Christian”, has no similarity with any of these concepts, and in fact talks, acts, and behaves much more like European fascism than American patriotism.
Add to this that their self-branding of “Christian” or “Christian nationalist” is a huge slap in the face to the G-d of the Bible – since their words and actions are more often than not, nothing that Yeshua (Jesus) Himself would endorse or condone.
I’ve said before, and it bears repeating, that if you call yourself a Christian but repeatedly violate the principles of the Bible, you’re lying to yourself (1 John 1:6), making a mockery of true Christianity, and pushing sinners away from Christ, instead of toward Him.
It’s this deliberate obfuscation of what the MAGA movement actually is, which itself causes confusion among those on the sociopolitical left mistakenly considering anything coming from the current MAGA political movement as “conservative” or “Republican”, when in fact it really isn’t.
However, that specific issue is one for another post.
Creating Unnecessary Confusion
The latest confusion (at least as of this writing) was caused by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who impressed upon his boss Donald Trump to make an announcement on September 22, 2025, claiming that there is a link between acetaminophen and autism. They have pushed the FDA to require a warning label change about the use of acetaminophen by pregnant women.
Once this announcement was made, the far-right-leaning social media channels went full-blown gorilla. What they heard was “Tylenol causes autism!” although that was not exactly what was said. So, they flooded social media with this misinterpretation of the announcement.
I suppose it’s understandable though, because everyone heard Trump’s own words:
“I want to say it like it is, don’t take Tylenol. Don’t take it.”
– Donald Trump during news conference, September 22, 2025
Rabid Response
Since then, some have posted links to the studies that they claim “prove” Kennedy’s accusation.
They also pulled up a 2017 (then) Twitter post supposedly from Tylenol about use of their products during pregnancy. These same people – spurred on by Trump’s own reference to this, are deliberately (or maliciously) misinterpreting the tweet and claiming that Kenvue (the manufacturer of Tylenol brand acetaminophen) told pregnant women back then not to take it. This is despite the fact that from the Internet Archive, it was clearly a response to a specific question by another Twitter user that had since mysteriously deleted after the Tylenol Twitter account posted their reply. Thus, this tweet is deliberately being taken out of context.
Still other far-right social media users accused the “libtards” of hiding all of this information and causing a “public health crisis.”
As with the Charlie Kirk issue, anything that those on the progressive/liberal persuasion may have said, and certainly everything that has been said by medical professionals and scientific bodies who know that proper acetaminophen use is considered safe during pregnancy, has been completely drowned out by the deafening screech from the far-right.
So, with Kennedy basing his “acetaminophen is linked to autism” claim on specific studies – and with certain far-right social media outlets, including Breitbart and My Faith Votes, propping up these studies as “proof” of Kennedy’s claim – let’s take a look at those studies to see what they really said, and if they are really as convincing as Kennedy wants people to believe.
Exposing The Studies
To clarify, scientific citations to studies are usually listed with the primary author’s last name, and “et al” included if other authors are cited in the original work, and subsequently usually the primary author’s name alone. I’m italicizing them here as a highlighting tool.
Yuelong
One study that was noted as “proof” was published in JAMA Psychiatry in 2019: Yuelong, et al.
Yuelong is drastically flawed because of its many methodological failures that render its results impotent as a basis for valid conclusions such as the government had recently announced.
Not only does the study deal with an exceptionally small sample/cohort size for such an important topic, but the conclusions drawn clearly downplay the variable characteristics (high-BMI mother, non-Hispanic white mother, smoking or alcohol use, etc.) and completely ignore other confounding factors such as genetics and macroenvironmental variables, which are widely considered to have a far greater impact on subsequent neurodevelopmental disorders (NDD) diagnoses than acetaminophen.
Red Flags
The largest red flags with this study that objectively must render it totally irrelevant as a basis for practice and policy decisions are these, admitted by the authors themselves:
- The study authors admit the fact that the half-life of acetaminophen in adults is less than 3 hours. As such, the cord plasma measurement of acetaminophen metabolites is only valid during the immediate peripartum period during which the cord blood is sampled (and they admit they only did one sample). However, they bypass the elephant in the room: the fact that using cord blood cannot accurately determine how much acetaminophen a mother may have been using during the entire course of the pregnancy. Indeed, measuring acetaminophen metabolites in cord blood – when the average in-hospital labor period is anywhere from 6-36 hours on average – indicates only potential in-hospital administration of acetaminophen, NOT the full-term use of acetaminophen by the mother.
- There is no evaluation of how much acetaminophen that each participant in this study’s small cohort reported taking during their full term, if any at all (more about this below). It is widely accepted that the riskiest time for proper fetal neurological development is during the first trimester; this risk decreases as the term progresses normally. Thus, if the study authors have no idea how much acetaminophen the cohort took during the full term, then no definitive conclusion can be made that “acetaminophen is linked to autism” (though the authors themselves never stated that per se).
- The study authors stated that they “did not have a true nonexposed group as reference.” When all one is doing is reporting on “those who have” instead of comparing and contrasting “those who have” with “those who haven’t”, it’s literally impossible to accurately conclude anything.
- The study authors admit not sorting for “potential residual confounders because of unmeasured genetic and environmental factors” which only diminishes the value of the conclusions they drew, as they are making assumptions based on only one possible factor.
Masarwa
Another study cited was published in 2018 the American Journal of Epidemiology. It’s Masarwa, et al.
Masarwa is not a true medical “study” in the sense that one would normally consider. It is a “systematic review” (sometimes called a “literature review” or a “meta-analysis”).
The Problem With Systematic Reviews
Think of a systematic review as a summary of other studies, like “Cliff Notes” for a literary work that creates a thumbnail sketch of a story but leaves out many details. Now, add to this, the confusion that plagues some systematic reviews when the authors attempt to create their own numbers and conclusions from all of the existing data of studies being reviewed.
Such an error in study methodology introduces into the systematic review’s conclusions, all of the deficits, confounding variables, bias, and methodological weaknesses of the original studies being summarized.
Such is the case with Masarwa. The summarized studies themselves have significant flaws, including small sample sizes, incomplete or narrow methods of study, and a profound lack of accounting for all possible confounding factors.
Adding It Up Wrong
Poorly-done systematic reviews such as Masarwa, always cause problems for actual research, since such review’s “conclusions” effectively do nothing more than “add up” all of the conclusions of the actual studies that were reviewed, thus typically coming up with a “bigger number” which can easily be improperly interpreted. For those unpracticed at reading systematic reviews, the conclusions can appear to support the conclusion the reader is hoping for, but (usually much more often) the real conclusions are not actually representative of the studies being summarized.
The Missing Study
“My Faith Votes” cited an article (see the screenshot above) from an online source called “The Modern Memo” (that appears to be a rather extreme right-wing source) which itself used the two studies above, and also linked to a “2021 review in Nature Reviews Endocrinology.” But their link goes to a dead page on Nature. This suggests that either the article author inserted an incorrect URL, or that Nature pulled the review probably because of misuse, unscientific method, or other possible reasons.
This is similar to what happened in 1998 when Lancet published Andrew Wakefield’s fraudulent “MMR-Autism” study. Lancet properly retracted the paper when it was subsequently discovered that Wakefield faked his entire research, which was funded by lawyers actively pursuing legal action against a pharmaceutical company. Further investigation confirmed this and discovered he committed financial fraud among other acts of misconduct. His medical credentials were permanently revoked because of his fraud and misconduct.
Invalidating Research
Now, what does all of this mean for the validity of the research that Kennedy and the far-right are propping up as supposed “proof” of their claim that acetaminophen use is linked to autism?
To answer that, we need to compare them to other studies.
In fact, this is the core of medical research: repeatability of findings. One study is never enough to “prove” the premise of a study; the results must be able to be repeated across other studies. If a study’s findings cannot be duplicated by other studies, than the original study’s findings are considered invalid.
Equally important is the type and quality of the studies being compared. It’s easy (and relatively lazy) to just look at systematic reviews/meta-analyses of studies that have not been adequately done (e.g., small sample sizes, not accounting for inherent bias, not considering confounding variables, etc.) and claim that one systematic review is confirming the findings of another systematic review.
Too Many Cooks
Unfortunately, in the case of possible implications of prenatal acetaminophen use on postnatal findings of NDDs, there are too many systematic reviews – and these reviews are not focusing on actual case-controlled medical studies (the gold standard), but are relying on results of other systematic reviews. This is a highly inaccurate way of assessing the merits of a premise.
The Gold Standard Study
The gold standard case-controlled study on this subject is Ahlqvist et al, published in JAMA in April 2024. It was a sibling-control analysis, which is extremely important to accurately determine the premise, because such a control drastically reduces familial confounding that can erroneously inflate associations in small-cohort analyses. Interestingly, it appears that all of the cohort studies on this subject suffer from this confounding that Ahlqvist properly removed.
In addition to the control built into Ahlqvist, the sample size wasn’t just a few hundred or a few thousand cohorts – one of the flaws that destroys the credibility of Masarwa and other cohort studies done on this subject. Ahlqvist had an extensive sample size of over 2 million subjects covering nearly 2 decades. The cohort studies can’t even touch this quality.
When one looks at properly conducted studies such as Ahlqvist, the conclusion is clear, as Ahlqvist accurately stated:
There is no statistically significant causal link between prenatal acetaminophen use and postnatal NDD findings.
Implicating The Flaws
So the implication here is also clear: the people in government who are making these policy decisions about medications like acetaminophen are using flawed data to build their claims.
This shows a huge lack of understanding of how to properly read and interpret medical research, and even how medical research and the research community even works. Apparently Kennedy and Trump don’t care about this.
Their policy decisions are based wholly on this flawed view of what is and is not valid research, and those who are politically aligned with the current policymakers (MAGA, so-called “conservative”, so-called “Republican”, so-called “Christian”) are hearing only the message of the policymakers and deliberately ignoring the message of many decades of sound medical experience.
The Anti-Medicine Health Secretary
Add to this that these anti-medicine decisions affecting public health – including cutting off vaccine research funding, destroying long-established public health guidelines, and gutting public health agencies – are being undertaken by someone with an infamously well-known and well-documented vested interest in anti-medicine conspiracy theories that attempt to discredit medicine and legitimate medical research, not in actual medical knowledge and public health.
There is no doubt that Kennedy is firmly in the anti-medicine conspiracy theory camp. This own words and actions even prior to him being appointed HHS Secretary are too well-documented to deny. All of the conspiracy theories he has been pushing have all turned out to be lies, easily destroyed and debunked by the simplest of valid scientific data.
“Eat All The Tylenol You Want!”
Now that we’ve exposed the studies, and the nefarious reasons behind Kennedy’s and Trump’s policy decisions that only serve to negatively impact public health, let’s destroy another myth that the far-right screechers are pushing.
The far-right is using this issue as another club to beat the heads of medical professionals and medicine itself. They’re holding this issue up as part of what they believe is Kennedy’s “righteous” attack on medicine and medical research, calling us frauds who care more about profits than about our patients and public health. They’re falsely claiming that we medical professionals are basically saying that patients can take as much acetaminophen as they want or feel they need.
This is an absolute lie.
The truth is this:
There is a difference between proper use of a medicine, and reckless use.
What Medical Science Says
In the case of acetaminophen, medical science has known for years that excessive intake of the medication increases the risk of liver and neurological damage. This is why for many years, guidelines specified that acetaminophen intake for the average individual should be no more than 3,000 mg per day. That may sound like a lot, but consider this.
Acetaminophen comes in regular strength (325 mg), extra-strength (500 mg) and so-called “arthritis-strength” (650 mg) forms. For most uses such as fever, body aches, or mild pain, acetaminophen is advised to be taken every 6-8 hours. So even if one takes the “arthritis-strength” 650 mg tablet, capsule, or caplet every 8 hours as directed, the daily intake is only 1,950 mg – much less than the guideline maximum of 3,000 mg.
But What About During Pregnancy?
Pregnant women are advised to avoid many medications (including acetaminophen) as much as possible, and when necessary, only to take the minimum effective dose as advised by and under the supervision of their obstetrician. This advice isn’t new. It’s been in place for decades, far longer than the current furor over acetaminophen artificially manufactured by Kennedy.
In fact, we have a classification system for medication safety in pregnancy and lactation, and every medication must be classified based on these criteria. Acetaminophen is in Category B (incidentally, a great number of common medications are in Category B).
Thus, if pregnant women follow long-established proper medical advice, their acetaminophen intake during their entire term will be low dose and very intermittent, and thus will likely be nowhere near any level that could be considered neurodevelopmentally harmful to their baby. We have consistently advised patients to avoid long-term and high-dose use of acetaminophen. Again, this isn’t brand-new advice.
Medical Experience Trumps Conspiracies
Consider this also: a number of medications (such as benzodiazepines, medications for ADD/ADHD, and certain antibiotics) are considered to have a greater risk during pregnancy and/or lactation (Category C and D medications). Because of this greater risk, pregnant and breast-feeding women are strongly advised not to use such medications until after the baby is delivered and/or after they complete breast-feeding.
But Category A and B medications are widely considered to be safe to use during pregnancy, including azithromycin (an antibiotic) and sertraline (an antidepressant). Despite this however, the long-established guidance dictates that pregnant women are advised to discuss all medications with their obstetrician before taking anything.
Kennedy’s Lack of Legitimacy
As of this writing however, we don’t see Kennedy claiming any other Category A and B medications besides acetaminophen “cause” autism or any other significant harm to a fetus. He’s obviously picked on a medication that is widely used both during pregnancy and at other times, hoping that everyone will just shut up and believe him. He played the exact same game with all of his other ridiculous conspiracy theories that have been disproven.
The real facts completely disprove Kennedy’s “acetaminophen is linked to autism” conspiracy theory, which is something the he cannot legitimately deny.
There has to be then, some other motive behind Kennedy’s attack on acetaminophen. I’ll go on record here as stating that it is my considered opinion that he has a heretofore unspoken sinister motive for picking on “Tylenol”, which could range anywhere from it being the easy target to attack for his anti-medicine strategy of trying to “prove” that everything causes autism (because that scares parents and may lead to distrust of the medical profession), to some financial motive that is incentivizing him to attempt bringing down a major pharmaceutical manufacturer like Kenvue.
Whatever his reasons, one thing is for certain: he has no legitimate basis for his claims. There’s a difference between the studies that Kennedy and Dr Mehmet Oz (a celebrity “doctor” who’s been involved in more than his fair share of spreading false conspiracy theories) are relying upon to prop up this attack on acetaminophen, and those studies that they’re deliberately trying to ignore.
Public Health Policy
Kennedy is relying on systematic reviews (which carry a significant amount of bias and potential for inaccuracy) and poorly-conducted studies that refuse to account for confounding variables and too-small sample sizes. Such research cannot be trusted by themselves as a basis for major public health policy decisions.
By contrast, proper studies (such as Ahlqvist) that better account for confounding variables and enroll very large sample sizes and well-established proper study controls, have inherent trustworthiness because they follow standard research guidelines and thus can be used as a basis for major public health policy decisions.
We in the medical community welcome properly-done research, even if that research ends up changing previously-held beliefs and guidelines. We love proper research because it guides our practice and informs public health guidelines and policy.
One of a number of such examples is colorectal cancer (CRC) screening. Past guidelines recommended CRC screening after age 50. However, after additional research validated the fact that a statistically-significant percentage of the population in their 40’s were diagnosed with CRC that was previously undetected, the guidelines changed. Now, the age is 45, with the caveat that if the patient has a family history of colon cancer, he/she should be routinely screened much earlier than 45.
Stacking The Deck
But look at what’s happened recently under Kennedy, the notoriously vocal anti-medicine HHS Secretary who has no education or experience in medicine (which itself is suspect).
He’s shut off funding for a variety of medical research. He’s gutted the staff at HHS and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), attempting to fire the Director of the CDC because she wouldn’t “play ball” with his anti-medicine views.
That doesn’t sound like someone who cares for public health. That sounds like someone with an axe to grind.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr: Making America Not Great Again
And our colleagues around the world have already taken notice. Dr Chaim mentioned to me a few weeks ago, that one of his colleagues in the UK was astounded by Kennedy’s cutting off research funding – essentially shutting down a huge amount of medical research in the US.
This colleague (who himself is a researcher) expressed the opinion that Kennedy’s actions are seen in research circles around the world as turning the USA into a third-world country in terms of medical innovation and research. Our colleagues around the world will take full advantage of this, with European researchers poised to replace the United States as the new leaders of medical research and innovation.
Thus, Kennedy’s own anti-medicine moves, spurred on by the far-right MAGA movement, are doing exactly what they the MAGA movement doesn’t want to happen: Kennedy is helping to make America NOT great, and positioning Americans to be far sicker overall than our counterparts around the developed world.
Who You Gonna Call?
So, when it comes to what you should and shouldn’t take over the counter or by prescription, the questions that you, dear reader, need to answer for yourself are these:
Who are you going to listen to? Who are you going to believe?
When your car needs repair, do you ask your postman/woman how to fix it? No.
When you want to install new kitchen cabinets in your home, do you call George Clooney? No.
When you’re looking to set up a retirement plan for yourself, do you consult your trash collector to set it up? No.
So, when you need advice on which medicine to use or to avoid, why would you even remotely entertain taking advice from an admitted heroin addict who has himself admitted that he has absolutely no medical education, background, or knowledge?
Listen To Your Medical Provider
The medical advice is now, as it has been for centuries: listen to your medical provider.
Licensed medical providers (physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants/associates) are all properly trained and practiced in medicine. Kennedy and Trump are not.
Licensed medical providers know how to read and properly interpret medical research. Kennedy and Trump do not.
Licensed medical providers are the best people to determine which medications you should or should not be taking at any given time, based on your individual makeup, and to determine and advise on potential side effects (don’t forget that EVERYTHING HUMANS DO has some potential side effect). Kennedy and Trump do not have this knowledge.
So, when it comes to your health and the health of your children – born or unborn – the most sound advice comes from your medical provider, who knows your body and your medical conditions. No one else knows that, like you and your medical provider do.
Destroying Another Far-Right Myth
Before I close, I can just hear some far-right-leaning reader (if they not cowards who stop reading after the first paragraph) saying, “all you doctors are paid off by Big Pharma to push” medicines and vaccines.
So, let’s destroy that right now, because it is a pure fantasy pushed only by the far-right, and at that, only a portion of the far-right who are full-on anti-medicine and anti-vaccine.
Pharmaceutical companies – large and small – spend literally millions of dollars developing just one medication. This money is spread between development and years of research. No medication that comes to market just magically appears out of thin air on the first try.
This is why pharmaceutical companies rely on the past decades of medical research to guide the development of new drugs and vaccines. It’s also the prime reason why the COVID-19 vaccines were so rapidly created, because the underlying mRNA technology had already existed for some 20 years before it was needed in such large quantity.
This is also why pharmaceutical companies spend a considerable amount of money to market their medications once they receive FDA approval (which again, isn’t typically a rapid process). This marketing effort does include discussions and educational materials about their medications that are aimed at medical providers. But this isn’t done to “buy us off” as the far-right wants to believe. It’s done to educate us on new-to-market medications, including efficacy, risks and benefits, and proper use.
Paying Off My Fourth Yacht
But there’s one thing that these pharmaceutical companies DON’T do: pay us for prescribing their medication or recommending their vaccine.
The most I get from pharmaceutical representatives is a free cup of coffee or a low-cost lunch from them as a “thank you” for my practice allowing them to walk in the door and discuss their medication.
The massive amounts of money that pharmaceutical companies spend is going to research, development, and post-launch marketing (like the annoying Jardiance ads you see on TV). They are absolutely not going into the pockets of medical providers. If medical providers were paid by pharmaceutical companies for “pushing” their products, then I can guarantee every one of you that right at this moment, I would be about as rich as Jeff Bezos, living in a 50-room mansion, and paying off my fourth yacht.
While I personally believe that pharmaceutical companies should not be spending so much money on advertisements – mostly because they’re either annoying, like that darn Jardiance song, or they can cause more confusion for patients – the logical reason for the advertising frenzy is to make patients aware of newer medications that may benefit them.
But listen to those advertisements, because inside each and every one, they say the same important advice: talk to your medical provider to see if “medication x” is right for you.
Hopefully you have a medical provider, either a family practice provider or a specialist, whom you trust and see regularly. He/she knows you best from a medical standpoint, and is far better able to determine if a medication would be beneficial for you, far better than any TV ad can hope to do.
The Bottom Line
The bottom line here is that neither Kennedy nor Trump are medically trained, and thus have no real authority to judge which medication should be avoided and which medication is safe to take.
Unfortunately, those who are inclined to trust in conspiracy-theory rhetoric will continue to believe those in the current governmental structures who have consistently demonstrated their anti-medicine views. The current government believes they have unbridled power to push their own agendas and influence your health decisions by making you distrust the very people who have made it their life’s work to keep people as healthy as possible and promote public health through the long-established logical course of evidence-based medicine and science.
So, from two medical providers with a combined well over half-century of medical experience, Chaim and I say: screw Kennedy.
Listen to your medical provider, and take acetaminophen AS DIRECTED, as sparingly as possible, and don’t worry that you’re going to cause autism in your unborn child if you take acetaminophen properly, because you won’t.
