TYLENOL PANIC! SOME FACTS

As the whole world seems to know, the Trump administration (through President Trump and Secretary RFK, Jr.) made an announcement this week that Tylenol usage in pregnant women could cause autism in children.

All the headlines have some sort of reference to "Trump says..." and makes the statement that he is making unsubstantiated claims, intimating that it is all his thoughts and idea.

I have been following the acetaminophen (Tylenol ingredient) issue for over 10 years. Numerous agencies and studies have mentioned a connection between acetaminophen and fetal developmental issues and/or autism in childhood.

How can I say this? Here are just a few of the links to studies and statements by researchers and medical journals and organizations.

First, how about a Twitter post from Johnson & Johnson (the owners of Tylenol at the time - now owned by Kenvue, a spinoff from J&J) from 2017. They posted "we actually don't recommend using any of our products while pregnant." A pregnant lady had asked if she should/could take Tylenol while pregnant.

Second, how about a National Institute of Health (NIH) article from 2016 that said: "We have shown in a case-control study that use of acetaminophen early in life is associated with increased likelihood for ASD [12]. We showed in this study that children who used acetaminophen at age 12 to 18 months vs. those who did not were eight times more likely to have ASD when all children were considered and nearly 21 times more likely to have ASD when limiting cases to children with regression in development." See the article here: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5044872/

Third, a peer-reviewed article in publication "Science Direct" that stated:

• Prenatal acetaminophen exposure was related to higher attention-related CBCL scores.
•More use in especially the second trimester was related to more attention problems.
•Increases in CBCL scores were small but apparent at 2, 3, and 4 years of age.
•Acetaminophen use in pregnancy may be related to worse attention in early childhood.

Not autism per se, but developmental issues. Link here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0892036224000011

A site called "Documenting Hope" a support site for parents dealing with autistic children and supporting autism research has this on their site:

Acetaminophen can cross the blood-brain barrier and enter the protected part of the brain: the hippocampus, a very complex part of the brain that is responsible for memory and learning.
Acetaminophen is a neuroendocrine disrupter because it negatively impacts the developing brain of the fetus by reducing testosterone production. This will affect hormonal development which ultimately plays a very crucial role in fetal brain development.
Acetaminophen increases oxidative stress by increasing free radicals and reducing the number of antioxidants to get rid of them. This disrupts normal neural development and could potentially increase the risk of autism.

link here: https://documentinghope.com/acetaminophen-and-the-autism-connection/

Then my conspiracy theory part - I mentioned at the beginning that I had been looking into the connection between acetaminophen and brain development for years. There is a site that I visited from time to time and most recently within this week. They had a couple of great articles that I had saved links to in anticipation of writing this post. They had an article entitled: “Acetaminophen Causes Neurodevelopmental Injury in Susceptible Children”

It was in the June 2023 edition of the "Journal for Clinical & Experimental Pediatrics". The link that I copied less than a week ago is now disabled. Makes me wonder who and why.

Now, this post was not and probably will not change anyone's mind that truly believes that Trump and RFK Jr. are totally crazy or out in left field. I do hope it makes all realize the statement from these folks was not formulated by them over the last week. The ongoing debate about acetaminophen being dangerous and damaging to a developing fetus has been ongoing for while and is accepted by a lot of very qualified folks.

Even more Questions

You may get this more if you read (or re-read) these older posts: "A Serious One" from 4/6/08 "Alphabet diseases" from 11/13/07 and "Questions" from 1/20/08 I am still trying to get answers to the Questions asked in the post above. I have not found any that are worthy of printing. I have come up with more questions: How does one handle seeing the continual decline of their spouse and not being able to do a thing about it? How do you take the inability of your 53 year old wife to get out of bed, or in and out of the shower unaided? How do you answer questions that beg not to be asked, like: will I see Bailey (our daughter, a rising senior)graduate; will Hannah (our granddaughter - almost 3) remember me; or will I see Landon (or grandson - 6 months) walk? How do you comfort your bride of 35+ years when she looks at you with tears streaming down her face? Most of all, how do you offer support and help when you are so damn mad at the world and the situa...

Late Night (early morning?) Thoughts

I was laying there trying to go to sleep last night (without much success, as I have a toothache), and my mind was wandering. I don't know about your mind, but when mine wanders....whoa! (just look at some earlier posts) So, I was thinking about George Washington (what...you don't think about our founding fathers when you are lying there trying to go to sleep?) and how he was called "the Father of our Country". I further thought that there is not a "Mother of our Country" (unless Martha gets it by default, but I don't think so). Then I started thinking about "family" or relationship nicknames. This is to be a participatory blog. I want you all to write back with the ones you think of that I missed. Here are the ones I thought of (I was up quite a while with my tooth!): Father of our Country, the Founding Fathers, Uncle Sam, Mother Earth, Mother Nature, Mother of all battles (or bombs), a priest is called - Father, a Mother Superior runs a conv...

Simple Pleasures

I am writing this on the morning of a departure. My wife and I are heading back home after the better part of a week in Florida. I had a business reason for coming, and with family here - she joined me. It is wonderful to see a daughter that we do not see nearly enough and to visit with a Mother/Mother-in-law as well. Yesterday between the day to day activities that must be done, I spent a large amount of time sitting in a lounge chair in a marvelous screened-in "porch" area of my Mother-in-Law's house. It was in the mid-70s to upper 70's while I was sitting, but with a fantastic cooling breeze most of the time, and a ceiling fan to fill in the lulls. The sky was a tropical blue with cottony clouds that cruised by with the lazy drift of a tube on a river. I was able to start and finish a novel yesterday by killing off the majority of it sitting in this splendor . I just wrote a comment on my sister's blog. This post is somewhat in response to myself for that com...

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