tfw my wife has a paracetamol allergy and I will never have autistic kids

😔

Uh, this is a logical fallacy though :(

Mr Brainworms

Tylenol is a brand. Acetominophen was created in 1878 (or 1852, depending on who you ask).

e: That doesn't make RFKJr not wrong and insane, in case it needed saying.

puts on logic glasses

Oh look, another brilliant mind discovered that autism was identified before Tylenol existed, so obviously Tylenol can't cause autism. That's like saying cancer existed before radiation therapy, therefore radiation can't cause cancer. Peak necessity/sufficiency confusion right here - apparently conditions can only have one cause and medical recognition equals temporal origin.

But hey, let's ignore that Swedish study of 2.5 million kids that found zero causal link when they actually controlled for confounding variables using sibling comparisons. Or those other high-quality studies that show the association completely disappears once you account for genetics and family environment. Who needs actual science when you have timeline gotchas?

Meanwhile pregnant women might avoid the safest pain reliever available because some politician decided to manufacture outrage for political points. But at least someone gets to feel intellectually superior about their logical fallacy meme.

🐱

Paracetamol was first made in the 1800's though.

Or are they just blaming a certain brand?

Listen I know the RFK claim is nonsense but that doesn't excuse faulty logic. This is like saying cancer existed before X so X can't be a carcinogen.

Careful! Cancer was around before cigarettes or dioxin. Not that I don't think RFK is full of shit, but sometimes it's best to ignore bad arguments when there are so many good ones to be made.

There's a 100% correlation between a child coming into direct physical contact with their family doctor and that same child later being diagnosed with autism. Show me an example where this was not the case. Family doctors are sporing autismomes like a tickled mushroom and no one is talking about it.

Just because something already exists, doesn't mean it can't be also caused by something else. Like canser. It already exists. But smoking can cause it too.

Next to that, it's paracetamol. It predates the discovery/naming of autism. It's already proven not to be the cause by other studies. Of course these studies could have been wrong, but I highly doubt that.

So this statement is incorrect. Doesn't change the fact that I don't believe a word of either Trump or RFK. I still believe science and I still don't believe pseudoscience.

Tylenol is just a paracetamol brand name in the US. TIL

That settles it, then. Obviously, autism was caused by time travel.

There is some data to suggest there may be a link.

However. The data is very limited. Mt sinai did a meta of 46 studies and found a link (not necessarily causal). A Swedish population study of like 2.5 million children found no link. Etc.

The modest increase that could exist is unclear and confounded. Is it Tylenol or is something that the Tylenol is being taken for? Eg if the mom is having frequent headaches or fevers is the underlying condition impacting development and making it look like Tylenol does?

But why?

Two big answers:

Kenvue (Tylenol manufacturer) is not exactly a “pharmaceutical giant”. They’re a much easier target for rfk to go after with much less in terms of resources. They absolutely will sue though and appear to be preparing to do so though. But going after vaccines (his big target), especially stuff like Covid vaccines, means going after real pharmaceutical giants. Moderna, Pfizer, Johnson and Johnson, etc. deeeeeep pockets and serious legal teams. This may be a fight he feels he can “win” to start gaining momentum and precedent.

IMO the bigger reason is political capital. He has a large following of desperate parents that want an answer for why their child has autism or intellectual disability. I know a lot of people on here are like “autism is a superpower” and that’s great but these people are stuck in the disability mindset. It’s also important to remember that autism is a broad spectrum. Some of these parents have children that are nonverbal, that can’t toilet or shower independently, that get extremely violent when frustrated, that need 24/7 assistance and will never live independently. Of course some of them are just frustrated that their otherwise fine kid isn’t “normal” enough but that’s a whole other frustrating thing.

They’re desperate for answers. The reality of the situation is that there isn’t a simple answer. The overwhelming evidence suggests a combination of factors: genetics, environmental, social and behavioral. But this is unsatisfying. I’ve worked with people on this for years and when you say “it’s probably a combination of factors” they are never happy with that. They want something to blame. This is the political capital. He is giving them that. Basically everyone has taken Tylenol within the past year. Most pregnant women will take Tylenol at some point for discomfort, pain, fever, etc.

Now they will not only have the answer to “what did this”, they will have him as a person to hold up as the savior who gave them the answer. I saw the same thing happen when I started around 2010. Even though it was years after it happened people still attached to Wakefield and were so grateful he gave them the explanation that it was the MMR vaccine. They’d “protect their other children” as a result by not vaccinating them. Didn’t matter if you pointed out Wakefields proven financial links to an alternative MMR vaccine, the retraction of the paper, him getting his medical license revoked, etc. That’s how desperate they are for answers. FWIW Wakefield is still super rich and got married to literal supermodels so that’s why he doubled down and probably a major factor in why rfk is doing the same

Til autism was once understood as being the same as schizophrenia.

Quite interesting how the concept of neurodivergence is almost doing the opposite with respect to individuals who overlap on multiple neurological labels. Except it celebrates the individual uniqueness of their mind, needs, strenghts and challenges rather then generalising to find the one pill to sell to all.

There's no time or resources in the world to debunk all the bullshit this people generate. Every day, all the time...