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.

  • Em Adespoton@lemmy.ca
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    1 month ago

    We’ve had two whole generations of people using acetaminophen during pregnancy. Why have we not seen a massive uptick in autism to match? After accounting for increased screening and changes in definition and attribution, there’s a slight rise in autism rates that doesn’t align at all with acetaminophen use.

    And where are the J&J studies showing that the supposed link was known to that particular company?

    They’d do much better targeting plastic and PFAS manufacturers, as their products are known to cause the cellular mutations that can lead to cancer and autism.

    • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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      1 month ago

      All these issues already existed before acetaminophen was even discovered. This is the result of letting incompetence go wild

    • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca
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      1 month ago

      There was alsoa few years in the 80s when acetominophen was recalled and no one used it beacuse of fear. No effect in autism rates. Just like lower vaccine uptake last decade has not affected autism rates. We let the idiots do the experiment.

  • gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works
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    1 month ago

    I hope Texans enjoy having their taxpayer dollars wasted. Because that’s what they’ve voted for, and that’s all this will do, because acetaminophen absolutely the fuck does not cause autism

  • flynnguy@programming.dev
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    1 month ago

    The first individual officially diagnosed with autism was Donald Triplett in 1943. Dr. Kanner (The Dr. who diagnosed him) had noted Triplett’s symptoms, such as social withdrawal and an insistence on sameness, as early as 1938. While not diagnosed as autism, there are historical accounts of individuals with similar characteristics, such as the “Wild Boy of Aveyron” in the late 1700s and Hugh Blair of Borgue in the 18th century.

    Tylenol was introduced in 1955.

    • Zron@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      Just a reminder that Europe had the concept of “Changelings” for 2,000 years, where babies that suddenly changed and became difficult or antisocial were thought to have been replaced by a fairy. These babies were then left in the woods to “return them to the fairies”

      This practice has been documented for thousands of years.

      Autistic people have existed for thousands of years, just now we don’t call them changelings and abandon them in the forest.

    • brown567@sh.itjust.works
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      1 month ago

      “A causes B” doesn’t imply that B is only caused by A, so this is pointless to bring up

      That being said, RFK is a colossal idiot and the Tylenol-autism thing is a pretty clear-cut case of correlation≠causation.

    • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      While autism absolutely existed prior to the brand “Tylenol”, acetaminophen has been around since 1878 and used as a pain/fever reducer since 1893.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 month ago

      I mean, you’d like to think courts are a place where evidence is reviewed and truth is ratified. But… glances at the US Fifth Circuit

  • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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    1 month ago

    So they hid the risks of insane conspiracy theories dreamed up by the delusional?