Texas AG Sues Makers of Tylenol, Claiming They Hid Alleged Links to Autism
RFKJr recently encouraged caution when using acetaminophen during pregnancy, while underscoring there is not “sufficient” evidence to link Tylenol to autism, but rather “suggestive”.
Last month, I reported the FDA would be issuing notifications to doctors regarding the use of the pain reliever acetaminophen during pregnancy out of concern for possible connections to autism and adverse impacts on neurodevelopment.
Subsequently, there were social media posts of pregnant women taking Tylenol in protest of this move by the Trump administration, especially the head of Health and Human Services, Sec. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
This week, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson and Kenvue, the current and former makers of Tylenol (i.e., acetaminophen). The suit alleges deceptive marketing and failure to warn consumers, namely pregnant women, about the alleged risks of autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders associated with the drug.
The makers of Tylenol, Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N), and Kenvue (KVUE.N), were sued on Tuesday by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who accused them of knowingly hiding the drug’s supposed links to autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.
Paxton, a Republican, sued five weeks after Republican President Donald Trump said using Tylenol during pregnancy can cause autism in children. Trump is not a doctor, and his claim is unproven and not backed by scientific evidence.
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Johnson & Johnson sold Tylenol for more than six decades, and its former Kenvue unit has sold it since 2023 after being spun off.
The pain reliever is known generically as acetaminophen. Doctors and medical societies consider acetaminophen the best option for treating fever and pain during pregnancy.
🇺🇸 🧑⚖️ The makers of #Tylenol were sued on Tuesday by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who accused them of knowingly hiding the drug's supposed links to autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder – a claim with no scientific backing.@FrazJ has the details ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/cg3aiiQJYn
— FRANCE 24 English (@France24_en) October 28, 2025
The current manufacturer of Tylenol refutes these claims.
In a statement, Kenvue pushed back on the attorney general’s claims, saying it is “deeply concerned by the perpetuation of misinformation on the safety of acetaminophen and the potential impact that could have on the health of American women and children.”
“Acetaminophen is the safest pain reliever option for pregnant women as needed throughout their entire pregnancy. Without it, women face dangerous choices: suffer through conditions like fever that are potentially harmful to both mom and baby or use riskier alternatives. High fevers and pain are widely recognized as potential risks to a pregnancy if left untreated,” the statement read.
Texas is working with a law firm experienced in dealing with cases involving corporate behemoths.
Dozens of people have filed personal injury lawsuits against Johnson and Johnson, and its corporate spin-off, Kenvue, alleging adverse neurodevelopment outcomes for their children after taking Tylenol while pregnant.
Those cases have been consolidated into multi-district litigation, which is still making its way through the courts and being led by Ashley Keller of Chicago law firm Keller Postman. Keller has represented Texas in litigation against Google and Meta, and has been contracted by the attorney general’s office to handle this new lawsuit against Johnson and Johnson.
“[Paxton] figured I knew the science, I knew the history, I knew a lot of the moving parts,” Keller said in an interview. “And so I’d be an obvious choice to pursue this for Texans.”
Paxton, who is running in the GOP primary to unseat U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, said in a statement announcing the lawsuit that “by holding Big Pharma accountable for poisoning our people, we will help Make America Healthy Again.”
Meanwhile, Kennedy recently encouraged caution when using acetaminophen during pregnancy, while underscoring there is not “sufficient” evidence to link Tylenol to autism, but rather “suggestive”.
“The causative association… between Tylenol given in pregnancy and the perinatal periods is not sufficient to say it definitely causes autism. But it is very suggestive,” Kennedy told reporters, citing animal, blood and observational studies.
“There should be a cautious approach to it,” he added.
…Asked if Kennedy’s latest comments signaled a softening of his stance on the issue, Emily G. Hilliard, Health and Human Services press secretary, said: “It’s the same position the Secretary has had since the beginning.”
I will simply point out that in science, “suggestive evidence” means there are some observations or studies supporting a possible association or hypothesis, but the evidence is limited, inconsistent, or cannot confidently rule out other factors like chance, bias, or confounding.
“Sufficient evidence” is a higher standard, indicating there is enough robust, high‐quality, and consistent data across multiple studies to reliably establish an association, minimizing alternative explanations.
Given the current data set, I would say the cautious approach of informing women and their doctors and allowing them to reach their own conclusions and decide the appropriate course of action would be best.
But, then again, I am not suffering from TDS nor trying to get views on my TikTok account.
Meanwhile, discovery in this case should be…fascinating.
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Comments
You guys remember when the left scoffed at this and started downing this shit like it was going out of fashion just to spite Trump and RFK! 🤔
could these women be held accountable if the children get autism? I mean, after all Tylenol is responsible
It is a rush to judgment to mothers of ASD children to sue. They will get zero traction at this juncture.
However, if the AG truly has reason to believe that they suppressed evidence then that is the current move to bring that to the light of day.
It is likely wishful thinking on his part paired with a desire to go on a lengthy fishing expedition in the hopes of discovering something. In the meantime he will garner plenty of publicity while running a campaign for senator, Gee. go figure, Nothing illegal about it but morally susceptible,
I’m comfortable writing there is no drug that is without risk or side effect. The questions are always what are the risks? what are the benefits? Do the benefits outweigh the risks and if so by how much?
I think the point here isn’t that Tylenol is particularly dangerous, but that information that it is potentially dangerous was withheld. Drug companies have a legal obligation to reveal all known potential adverse effects (which is why such effects now span two or three pages of warnings). If they did not meet their obligations, they’re on the hook for the adverse effects, not for the effects themselves but for not providing information that may have caused Tylenol’s users to avoid the drug and thus avoid the adverse effects.
“who accused them of knowingly hiding the drug’s supposed links to autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder – a claim with no scientific backing.”
Or is it a claim WITH scientific backing that has been KNOWINGLY HIDDEN?? Your own words, aholes!
You cannot hate the national OR international s*tlib media enough.
Wait a moment…! I thought the makers of Tylenol had warnings about taking it during pregnancy right from the start.
Correct.
I seem to recall the warning being reported as posted beginning in 2017. Obviously the makers had some reasonable basis for the warning so the questions become what was that basis/evidence, when did they know, what (if any) was the interval between their knowledge and their warning to the public.
On every box, and bottle of Tylenol and generic of acetaminophen that I’ve ever bought.
There’s nothing like deep pockets and punitive damages.
Does Paxton have any evidence that Tylenol was hiding the supposed link to autism, or is he hoping to find something in discovery,…?
These claims, brought by some of same plaintiffs’ lawyers, have already been discovered through their teeth on these issues in the multi-district litigation pending in federal district court in Manhattan. The court excluded the plaintiffs’ experts opinions as unreliable and then granted summary judgement to the pharmaceutical defendants. https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=2960987977774391451&q=707+F.Supp.3d+309&hl=en&as_sdt=4,351
That plaintiffs’ appeal is set to be heard before the Second Circuit on November 17. Based on the Second Circuit’s track record, I expect that the evidentiary rulings below, and the subsequent grant of summary judgment, will be affirmed.
Tylenol has been marketed for 60 years.
The warning about pregnant women taking it came out only 8 years ago.
That’s enough to investigate.
707 F. Supp. 3d at 320. https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=2960987977774391451&q=707+F.Supp.3d+309&hl=en&as_sdt=4,351
why should we even care ,,,in a legal sense!?????
b/c the government has grown into a monstrosity and the core battle of capitalism vs socialism has even been lost on the progenitor that is
Donald J Trump
maga