Tylenol is just a paracetamol brand name in the US. TIL
proof of wormholes
Submitted 10 hours ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to science_memes@mander.xyz
https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/d5b6de0c-9b1a-4232-833b-840a33144a51.png
Comments
omgitsaheadcrab@sh.itjust.works 1 hour ago
meowmeowbeanz@sopuli.xyz 4 hours ago
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.
🐱
rustydomino@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
You’re not wrong. But my guess is that “autism predates Tylenol” is probably gonna convince more people than “large controlled study done by the Swiss”. People are generally really ignorant
barnaclebutt@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
Hmm, i don’t like your tone, but you are correct. Also, ASD has a heritability greater than 80% which is higher than blood pressure and the same as human height. It’s a genetic disorder.
Also, when was it necessary to differentiate ASD from schizophrenia? The age of onset of schizophrenia is around 18-21 and autism is present practically from birth (apparent 1-3 years). I think OP is wrongly interpreting the Kraepelinian dichotomy which is about bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.
squaresinger@lemmy.world 26 minutes ago
@meowmeowbeanz@sopuli.xyz is totally right. The meme is based on a wrong premise.
It claims that Autism was a known thing in 1911 (true), and that Tylenol was created in 1955 (misleading since the active ingredient, Paracetamol was created in 1878 and was in wide use before the brand Tylenol was created). Then it implies that the argument is that Tylenol is the only cause of Autism and then poses that as a contradiction.
Logically, that’s like claiming that some People died in 1700, and that the Ford Model T was only created in 1908 and then claiming that thus it’s nonsense that cars can kill people.
On the one hand it ignores that the active ingredient of the medication was in use far earlier than that one random brand showing up, and on the other hand it claims that the argument with Tylenol and Autism is that every single case of Autism happens due to Tylenol, which pretty much nobody is claiming.
So the meme is just wrong on many levels.
So instead of making up and disproving a lie, why not use actual science? There’s overwhelming scientific evidence that Paracetamol has no effect on Autism.
One might say that this doesn’t really sway those who choose to ignore science in favour of their own gut feelings, but on the other hand, does a fallacious lie sway them?
meowmeowbeanz@sopuli.xyz 3 hours ago
Well, the OP’s argument becomes nil when it’s based on such a basic fallacy, I mean c’mon. Temporal precedence ≠ causal impossibility.
And since autism-as-symptom existed in 1911 but autism-as-disorder wasn’t differentiated until later, the meme’s temporal logic becomes even more meaningless. lol
🐱🐱🐱🐱
AlexTheBirb@europe.pub 1 hour ago
This reads like a grok reply lol
Triumph@fedia.io 10 hours ago
Tylenol is a brand. Acetominophen was created in 1878 (or 1852, depending on who you ask).
shalafi@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
Over half of Americans read at a 6th-grade level or lower and our President speaks at a 4th-grade level. How many you suppose know Tylenol and acetaminophen are the same thing?
kautau@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
Just wait till they hear what big pharma is doing with paracetamol
Scubus@sh.itjust.works 6 hours ago
Not to mention, this doesnt prove tylenol doesnt cause cancer, it just proves that tylenol isnt the only cause of cancer.
Obv it doesnt, but this argument is just bad.
pyre@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
you fucked the argument lol
RFKJrsBrainworm@sh.itjust.works 5 hours ago
That mother fucker is absolutely insane
blackbrook@mander.xyz 6 hours ago
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.
blimthepixie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 10 hours ago
Paracetamol was first made in the 1800’s though.
Or are they just blaming a certain brand?
CompactFlax@discuss.tchncs.de 10 hours ago
Direct from Wikipedia
Paracetamol was first made in 1878 by Harmon Northrop Morse or possibly in 1852 by Charles Frédéric Gerhardt.
The left has misinformation too. Science is on our side; there’s no reason to propagate this shit.
fossilesque@mander.xyz 10 hours ago
blimthepixie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 hours ago
It’s always about money.
Wonder what the announcement will be? Wonder which drug they’ll push and which of Trumps cronies will own the pharma company
LillyPip@lemmy.ca 7 hours ago
Literally no Americans know what paracetamol is. Randomly ask anyone.
Americans know brand names: Tylenol, Advil, Prilosec, Ambien.
I’ll bet you could survey Americans and 999/100 have never even have heard the word paracetamol. Or zolpidem. Most won’t have heard anything but the brand names, and the brand names have been drilled into their heads by way of constant advertising.
US brands have spend stupid amounts of money making sure people think of their propriety name instead of the real name of any drug.
Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 6 hours ago
Americans know “paracetamol” about as well as you apparently know “acetaminophen”.
They are the same compound.
“Paracetamol” is the generic term used in Europe and Australia. “Acetaminophen” is the generic term commonly used in the Americas.
SolSerkonos@piefed.social 7 hours ago
Nobody would’ve heard paracetamol, but you’d probably get some hits with acetaminophen. Not a lot, to be clear, but some.
TrickDacy@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
I know several Americans who know what paracetamol is. Not sure it’s as rare as you think.
RebekahWSD@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
I know almost all my meds by the generic names because I’m broke and that’s what the pharmacy will give me. Ibuprofen, levothyroxine, etc. Alprazolam.
HootinNHollerin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 hours ago
I most certainly do because I’ve traveled a shit ton
shalafi@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
The argument would be that autism is on the rise, not that it’s a new thing. I’m assuming this crowd understands the “rise” is from finer-tuned diagnoses. Hell, there may be another factor, but money says it ain’t Tylenol.
ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 hours ago
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
MrSulu@lemmy.ml 1 hour ago
Given the overwhelming number of well structured studies showing no relationship, the meta analysis that potentially, may, if you quint and really try to bend the light to see it in a certain way, is simply too far away to have any meaningful value.
ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 minutes ago
This is bad reasoning. For one the mt Sinai meta is not poorly structured. For two there’s not exactly an “overwhelming number” of contrary studies. For three there’s a number of studies besides the mt Sinai study. You dismiss the meta on lack of merit without actually examining it and place it against fantastical papers (that may or may not exist, and as mentioned the quantity of which is being exaggerated)
In addition to the mt Sinai paper 2 other similar papers came out in 2025 (one from Harvard, one from environmental health) showing a link. There’s also the danish birth study which showed a link between Tylenol and a specific presentation of autism (hyperkinetic symptoms, closer to adhd).
Papers to the contrary aren’t necessarily “overwhelming” either, there’s 3-4 metas recently that show no causal link and the big one is the Swedish birth study I referenced in the initial post. But that’s countered by the above metas and the danish birth study.
Therein lies the issue and why it’s a point of debate. RFK is wrong to do what he is doing because the data is not strong enough to make the bold claim that he is making. He is a charlatan and likely scamming somehow (perhaps to sell folinic acid, which also has spurious data for efficacy). However, on the same point to reject the potential of Tylenols impact entirely because RFK is interested in it as a potential causal factor is equally foolish. It could be a factor. We don’t know yet. It needs more exploration. This could increase funding to explore it potentially (which could be a total waste of time).
IMO you should probably listen to the mt Sinai paper, which recommends that you take Tylenol if necessary during pregnancy as “untreated maternal fever and pain pose risks such as neural tube defects and preterm birth” and ultimately recommends a balanced approach limiting Tylenol exposure, eg try not to take tons of it
FuglyDuck@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
Do you have any idea how common it is to give people, even kids, Tylenol?
I’m not looking up their meta, but I suspect it’s as informative as the meta that shows a “link” between autism and vaccines.
Might as well investigate a link between Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or wearing clothes.
ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 hours ago
Yes, I touched upon this. Also, it’s not “their” meta. It’s a meta done by mt Sinai and Harvard (eg done with rigor) which openly admits the link cannot be established as causal because, as stated, there are many confounding factors to consider
boonhet@sopuli.xyz 4 hours ago
Yeah, acetaminophen is like the most common painkiller and fever reducer. They make syrup versions of it you can give to children. And, uh, suppositories for babies that are too small for the syrup.
dondelelcaro@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
I always turn these around and ask given the study size, what is the confidence interval of the number of autism diagnoses attributable to Tylenol?
Often the number is surprisingly low given the other factors (and frequently uncontrolled confounders.)
YoiksAndAway@piefed.zip 8 hours ago
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.
prime_number_314159@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
I only buy generic brand medications, so my kids are at risk of generic brand autism. Is this going to be a signifier of a low income upbringing when they reach adulthood?
Should I switch to name brand Tylenol for their future?
bless@lemmy.ml 1 hour ago
Yes, like Lego bricks Vs generic ones, the autism from those has higher fault tolerances
lime@feddit.nu 2 hours ago
yeah your children are gonna get that non-specific autistic enterocolitis that wakefield warned about
58008@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
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.
OpenStars@piefed.social 7 hours ago
Not true! YOU just talked about it.
And now I am taking about it… holy shit, it’s spreading!
grrgyle@slrpnk.net 7 hours ago
Delectable comment. I enjoyed every word.
beejboytyson@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
You’re telling not to take medical advice from a crackhead??? Nah that can’t be it…
Archangel1313@lemmy.ca 10 hours ago
That settles it, then. Obviously, autism was caused by time travel.
DeathsEmbrace@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
I fucked up some orgo im sorry
xylol@leminal.space 8 hours ago
Every where I look there are orgies, now in time and space parties
LeeeroooyJeeenkiiins@hexbear.net 4 hours ago
What the fuck is up with the people here seemingly rabidly eager to believe tylenol causes fucking autism? I guess the comment saying people are desperate for answers was really fuckin right
webghost0101@sopuli.xyz 10 hours ago
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.
mitch@piefed.mitch.science 7 hours ago
I am autistic and I can understand it. When stressed, autistic people can exhibit disordered thinking or just naturally pick up on relationships and patterns that neurotypical people do not. We can also have the appearance of unpredictable volatility when facing things like burnout or abuse.
Especially in an era where mental health treatment was really just sending you you to a prison.
merdaverse@lemmy.zip 9 hours ago
Cool, maybe next they can find a cure for MAGA
robot_dog_with_gun@hexbear.net 6 hours ago
creepystephenscreepiestdoll@lemmynsfw.com 5 hours ago
And worms
cm0002@piefed.world 10 hours ago
That's the dumbest shit I've heard in a long time LMAO
I have no doubt that Tylenol isn't as safe as it's made out to be, but RFKs brain worms swung way too far in the other direction lol
shalafi@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
Tylenol would be a prescription drug if it hit the market today. Had a friend blow her liver and lie in a coma for two months until she got a transplant. She was a hardcore alcoholic, and this is an alcoholic saying that. Doctor addressed the family and told them alcohol wasn’t the factor, the liver failure was 100% down to Tylenol.
OTOH, I’ve seen a lot of ignorant comments from people thinking it does cumulative damage. Nope, just don’t do too much at once.
logicbomb@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
She was a hardcore alcoholic, and this is an alcoholic saying that. Doctor addressed the family and told them alcohol wasn’t the factor, the liver failure was 100% down to Tylenol.
That doesn’t sound realistic, that a hardcore alcoholic’s liver failure was 0% from alcohol abuse. I suspect that the information changed at some point in the process of relating it to you.
It was probably just that the Tylenol overdose was the immediate cause, and somebody took that to mean that alcoholism was not a factor.
parody@lemmings.world 8 hours ago
We learned somewhat recently it can dull emotional pain
It was around for decades and decades then just some years ago researchers figured that out. Always much to learn, not from brainworm scammer though of course
stray@pawb.social 4 hours ago
Wow, thank you for bringing that up. That’s potentially very helpful in some situations.
Specifically I’m thinking that it might be worth taking a preemptive dose prior to contact with a known trigger, to assist with exposure therapy.
RFKJrsBrainworm@sh.itjust.works 5 hours ago
Don’t blame me for his bullshit…it’s empty in here
whotookkarl@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 hours ago
Snake oil don’t sell itself
WanderWisley@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
Not full of crap, full of worms, brain worms.
RFKJrsBrainworm@sh.itjust.works 5 hours ago
Can confirm
PunnyName@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
¿Por que no los dos?
LillyPip@lemmy.ca 9 hours ago
And before that, it was all kinds of slurs I shouldn’t say. It’s been here forever, we’ve only developed empathy for it recently.
ArchmageAzor@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
You think these guys care about logic?
daniskarma@lemmy.dbzer0.com 43 minutes ago
OP post is faulty logic, though.
As others had commented cancer existed before cigarettes.
TowardsTheFuture@lemmy.zip 9 hours ago
I … are y’all this stupid?
I mean I know dumb man is dumb and I don’t care to watch him speak but I don’t think he’s saying tylenol™ was the sole creator of fucking autism.
Just saying that like 60,000 other things, inlcuding like every other pain killer, that it can cause issues for the developing baby and thus should be avoided if possible.
Hell it probably wasn’t explicitly on the list mostly as it’s the least unsafe painkiller.
shalafi@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
The argument has always been that autism is on the rise and they’re casting about for a factor. I think it’s mostly, if not all, a matter of better diagnostic tools and procedures. Maybe there is another factor, but not seeing them present any real evidence here.
Also, Tylenol is hardly safe. Had a friend blow out her liver, was in a coma for 2-months until she got a replacement.
Responsible for 56,000 emergency department visits and 2600 hospitalizations, acetaminophen poisoning causes 500 deaths annually in the United States. Notably, around 50% of these poisonings are unintentional, often resulting from patients misinterpreting dosing instructions or unknowingly consuming multiple acetaminophen-containing products.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK441917/
And who could forget the Tylenol Murders? :) It was a BIG deal, whole country scared shitless. I was only 11 but well aware of the whole thing.
Funny the event never comes up, but that’s why we have restrictive packaging. When I was a child, you could pull a product off the shelf, pop the top and remove the cotton wad, that easy. It was really weird watching the packaging change hit overnight.
MIDItheKID@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
“I think it’s mostly, if not all, a matter of better diagnostic tools and procedures.”
This is the winner right here. If you ask your parents or grandparents about people they went to school with who were “a little weird” or “really shy” or “really into trains” or whatever it is. It was all just undiagnosed autism. The percentage of people with autism hasn’t changed. The percentage of people correctly diagnosed has. And of course it’s a spectrum. In the past they only diagnosed severely autistic people. Now with more understanding of it, we realize that it comes in several mild flavors as well.
TowardsTheFuture@lemmy.zip 8 hours ago
Yeah this all reads as “well fuck we said we were gonna have something so we’ll just go with this thing we already knew should probably be avoided but left as the only real option so we’ll say it’s that and not actually change anything.”
Now I am much more worried about is their “cure” that was “tested” and posted about in Feb of this year… on… one… single… 3 year old… who they fully doxxed showing that, incase it wasn’t obvious by n=1, that the study is fucking bullshit and not following NIH standards at all.
bathing_in_bismuth@sh.itjust.works 3 hours ago
I agree with the sentiment but the diagnosis autism has changed dramatically over the years, especially the last 25 or so. What was called autism back then might be only a small part of the spectrum now.
Maybelline@lemmy.zip 10 hours ago
… or worms.
Hond@piefed.social 9 hours ago
Nothing but to agree. But we are way past the point of facts. This fallacy implies just projection of your own competency onto morons who just dont care. Your enemy doesnt care.
Joeffect@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
So here’s my question… if they think it causes autism why don’t they tell everyone not to take it? If it’s that dangerous, why can adults take it and not get autism?
valtia@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
Drinking alcohol doesn’t give adults birth defects either, but drinking alcohol while pregnant causes birth defects in the child 🤯
Joeffect@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
But they are trying to say that taking Tylenol is the cause…
I get what you’re saying, but it’s more like letting babies drink alcohol… you know? Because it’s harmful no matter what age you drink, it’s going to lead to problems
I’m just questioning the logic behind it…
stray@pawb.social 4 hours ago
Alcohol can’t cause birth defects in adults because they’re already born, but it can and does damage the adult brain and other organs.
myfunnyaccountname@lemmy.zip 6 hours ago
But but but orange man say drug bad.
PunnyName@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
He’s a dumbass. And a liar.
If he says snow is white, he’s lying (taken from God of War).
RaoulDuke85@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
And also swims in crap.
Fossifoo@hexbear.net 1 minute ago
Conveniently, this mostly affects the pain management of people giving birth. Almost as if they don’t care about them too much. Makes you wonder.