When it came to over-the-counter painkillers, Tylenol was thought to be one of the safer ones to take. One of the only noted risks was drinking three servings of alcohol at the same time when taking Tylenol. If you do that, you run the risk of having problems with your liver.
There is a new issue and this one affects women who are pregnant and take Tylenol or generic aceteminophen. There are studies that show that there is a higher prevalence of children having autism or ADHD after being born from women in these groups.
As a result, there is a Tylenol pregnancy lawsuit in the works. It could turn out that the makers of these products could wind up having to pay quite a large sum if it turns out that there is a ruling against them.
The Study
This was not a small study – it was run by 91 scientists from both America and Europe and they published it in 2021.
The Increased Risk
When these studies were conducted, it showed that if a pregnant woman took Tylenol regularly during that time, there was a 20% increased risk of their baby winding up on the autism spectrum.
What was the threshold that was used to determine what regular use of Tylenol was – that number was found to be more than six times, especially early in the pregnancy when their fetus was developing into a fully-grown baby.
Speech Delays
The same studies show that there can be a speech delay when it comes to the children of pregnant women who took Tylenol while preg. They may develop delayed speech. It was found that they were six times more likely to have this happen to them.
With all of this being said, there are a lot of factors that contribute to a child winding up on the autism spectrum, including the age of the mother when she becomes pregnant, environmental issues, and even possible hereditary ones. Tylenol is not thought to be the main factor, just a contributing one.
Science is constantly evolving and different links are being found all the time. What seems to be a cause one day may turn out to be something different. The lawsuits around Tylenol are about a manufacturer who is selling something that could be dangerous to the personal development of a fetus as it turns into a baby and, ultimately, a child.
These lawsuits will bear watching because it can be something that might lead to this drug being classified as something more than just a painkiller. It could also spur more research for solutions for people who can’t take things like ibuprofen or aspirin due to reactions to it.
Time and the courts will tell what direction we will be going as a society. If people do monitor their Tylenol intake while pregnant, then that could be something that helps slow down the diagnoses of children on the autism spectrum. That would be a relief for many.
