The New Yorker:

Trump’s attacks on Tylenol come after decades in which many women were excluded from medical studies, which has created uncertainty about which drugs are safe.

By Rachel Pearson

One evening in 2019, when I was a pediatrics resident, I admitted a two-month-old to the hospital for observation after a minor surgery. I explained to the baby’s mother that I planned to order acetaminophen—commonly sold over the counter as Tylenol—every six hours, because the baby had an obvious source of pain. If pain still kept the baby from eating, sleeping, or calming down, the mother could ask for an opioid. I was just leaving the room when the mother stopped me to ask about the acetaminophen.

“Doesn’t it cause autism?” she said.

“I’m not familiar with any research linking Tylenol to autism,” I told her. “But I’ll look into it and get back to you.” In the meantime, we agreed to use both the acetaminophen and the opioid as needed, instead of administering them on a schedule.

When I sat down at a hospital computer, I was surprised to find that the mother’s question had a basis in mainstream research. Small studies had associated acetaminophen exposure in utero with a baby’s risk of developing autism. But this wasn’t the same as saying that Tylenol caused autism. Perhaps whatever the drug was treating—for example, fevers, infections, or painful chronic conditions—contributed to autism, and acetaminophen did not.

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