Submitted 20 hours ago by fossilesque@mander.xyz to science_memes@mander.xyz
https://mander.xyz/pictrs/image/d5b6de0c-9b1a-4232-833b-840a33144a51.png
The logic of the ‘meme’ is faulty. Something being identified before something else does not mean the second thing cannot create the first.
Cancer existed before cigarettes, yet cigarettes still cause cancer. Using this ‘meme’s’ logic, “anyone trying to tell you that cigarettes cause cancers is entirely full of crap”.
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.
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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
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.
@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?
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
🐱🐱🐱🐱
This reads like a grok reply lol
Tylenol is a brand. Acetominophen was created in 1878 (or 1852, depending on who you ask).
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?
Just wait till they hear what big pharma is doing with paracetamol
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.
you fucked the argument lol
That mother fucker is absolutely insane
Do you think RFK knows this?
it’s a bad argument, but the people claiming that Tylenol causes autism aren’t using logic to make their claim either.
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.
There’s no time or resources in the world to debunk all the bullshit this people generate. Every day, all the time…
Paracetamol, what you lot call acetaminophen, was first synthesized in 1877(or maybe much earlier in 1853). It wasnt widely used until the 1950s. Tylenol is a brand name that means fuck all to any conversation.
It means a lot to the company that owns the Tylenol brand. People would be fools not to try suing.
No, you see he said “asseattomanefin” first. So, its totally fine…
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.
There are many countries worldwide that use a fraction of this drug compared to the US. Americans eat them like candy. Regardless, there is no difference in incidence of autism.
Tylenol is just a paracetamol brand name in the US. TIL
Paracetamol, acetaminophen, and Tylenol are all shortened names of N-acetyl-para-aminophenol, putting together different bits of the chemical name.
I was kinda shocked when I learnt this. Like finding out that Digestive biscuits were called Graham crackers.
Their origin is a pretty interesting read too.
Yep it’s just Paracetamol (aka Acetaminophen depending on your locality). Always buy the generic, it’s the same shit in a less flashy box.
Neben Acetylsalicylsäure, Ibuprofen oder Diclofenac ist Paracetamol einer der häufigsten Wirkstoffe in Präparaten, die gegen Fieber und Schmerzen eingesetzt werden. Paracetamol wirkt im Gegensatz zu diesen nicht entzündungshemmend.
Ah.
Paracetamol was first made in the 1800’s though.
Or are they just blaming a certain brand?
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.
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
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.
Nobody would’ve heard paracetamol, but you’d probably get some hits with acetaminophen. Not a lot, to be clear, but some.
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.
I know several Americans who know what paracetamol is. Not sure it’s as rare as you think.
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.
I most certainly do because I’ve traveled a shit ton
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.
jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/…/2817406
Findings In this population-based study, models without sibling controls identified marginally increased risks of autism and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) associated with acetaminophen use during pregnancy. However, analyses of matched full sibling pairs found no evidence of increased risk of autism (hazard ratio, 0.98), ADHD (hazard ratio, 0.98), or intellectual disability (hazard ratio, 1.01) associated with acetaminophen use.
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.
Not true! YOU just talked about it.
And now I am taking about it… holy shit, it’s spreading!
Delectable comment. I enjoyed every word.
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
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.
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
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.
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
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.
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.)
The point of picking Tylenol is so Trump can say he fixed autism, like the war between Aberbiajan and Albania.
Looks like those elite bastards are going to make some good old creaky stock market money off of their Tylenol lies.
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?
Yes, like Lego bricks Vs generic ones, the autism from those has higher fault tolerances
yeah your children are gonna get that non-specific autistic enterocolitis that wakefield warned about
That settles it, then. Obviously, autism was caused by time travel.
I fucked up some orgo im sorry
Every where I look there are orgies, now in time and space parties
Autism was differentiated from Schizophrenia?
Yes even thought they have entirely different traits people are stupid and they used the term schizophrenia as a catch all for anything that was seen as “abnormal”.
Nowadays it’s a little better, not as much as one might think, autism is the bucket term now, but I’ll try to give some better definitions.
Autism is a condition in which people lack in the more normal modes of thinking, and also social skills. Autists tend to have a few symptoms.
-Great difficulty in socializing
-High levels of sensitivity and high levels of neuroticism. (Don’t like being touched, don’t like their things being touched to a very high degree)
-A lack of common sense
-Often they fixate on a specific thing or set of things they really like, while they lack in general skills.
-They in some cases have difficulty understanding what people mean when they say stuff in social contexts, and often can understand specific things really well.
Schizophrenia
-They often have trouble staying awake fully in every part of their brain, leading to hallucinations in waking life.
-They often cannot understand allegory or metaphor really well, (they believe figures of speech to be literal) they can only understand something like religion as literal, not metaphorical.
-Schizophrenia tends to be a degenerative brain disease, where most people develop it between 29-35, and it usually worsens over life and their intelligence tends to drop faster than most adults.
-Schizophrenics tend to be antisocial, but not really by preference as much as autists. Which is one of the main differences. Schizophrenia is a degenerative brain disease where autism isn’t really degenerative or anything and autists tend to be much more antisocial but not paranoid and stuff.
-Schizophrenics tend to have extreme paranoia, and also they see patterns where there are none.
Schizophrenia is definitely the worst, and autism isn’t really bad in many cases. People can have a perfectly healthy and happy life with autism but schizophrenia is extremely destructive to people.
Both of these have almost no single known cause. Schizophrenia is thought to be highly generic but a combination of many genes. Autism is less understood.
The first people who did a nature vs nurture study in schizophrenia discovered a new condition, that many of the family members of schizophrenia had, called schizotypal syndrome.any of these people, although nearly perfectly healthy, tended to be weird, and also a bit antisocial. They had a great deal of superstition and fixations. They often were just weird though. Their house would smell weird. They would have odd colors. Things like this. It is thought that this is a precursor to schizophrenia. On cases where people just have schizotypal syndrome, this can be thought of as a case where diversity usually wins out in evolutionary terms. A diverse set of mental creatures is nearly always going to win over a very homogenous group of mental creatures, yet sometimes too many of these phenotypes end up in one child, and the neurodegenerativness might come from lifestyles factors associated with highly schizotypal living. (Taking lots of medicine, believing everything they hear on TV, like medication is safe to take when pregnant) Which most people would just understand as incorrect. Bad diet from poverty due to being weird. Having too many germs and mold in their house because they are scared of burglars so they are afraid to open the windows. Things like this.
Schizophrenia tends to still be a bit of a bucket term, and autism as well, but these are far better defined these days. The reason they are most likely on the rise is because of less real food, with nutrients, more poverty, and highly stressful modern lifestyles, and also many people spend a lot of time around manmade and synthetic materials in childhood and spending time in nature, which can help the immune system learn to work correctly. Most germs in nature aren’t very dangerous to humans, because they haven’t evolved specific traits to infect humans. So your immune system has a strong advantage over these germs.
So if you don’t want your kids to develop these, air your house out sometimes, let them play in nature, feed them high quality food, and keep their stress low, and make sure they have enough free time so that they can sleep at night. Also don’t take medication while you are pregnant unless you absolutely have too. People should know this without someone telling them this.
Explain how autism was differentiated from schizophrenia in 1911, but the first autism diagnosis wasn’t until 1943.
-A lack of common sense
This one bothers me. How is “common sense” defined for this criteria?
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.
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.
You’re telling not to take medical advice from a crackhead??? Nah that can’t be it…
Cool, maybe next they can find a cure for MAGA
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
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.
Mr Brainworms
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
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.
Snake oil don’t sell itself
You think these guys care about logic?
Not full of crap, full of worms, brain worms.
Schadrach@lemmy.sdf.org 7 hours ago
Not to defend RFK, but this argument is dumb.
People from everywhere it doesn’t natively grow developed cancer long before they had access to tobacco. That doesn’t prove tobacco use doesn’t cause cancer, it just means it isn’t the only potential cause.
Nalivai@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
That’s because cancer is a category of diseases, not a single one. Specific types of cancer that are caused by smoking are caused by smoking (there is afaik 12 of those, and some are associated with prolonged inhalation of any smoke, and some are only tabaco-related, but it doesn’t matter)
grue@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
Are there any cancers that were found to be "caused by smoking before 2003?
Of those, are there any that have subsequently also been found to be “caused by” vaping (such as the tobacco-related ones)?
If so, then it means vaping is indeed a cause (as opposed to the singular cause) of those cancers even though they were around before vaping was invented.
That’s why this meme is bad.
null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 hours ago
The point is, the claim is that Tylenol is “linked to” autism.
This post is rebutting the claim that Tylenol “causes” autism.
Thats a classic straw man argument.
Blackmist@feddit.uk 5 hours ago
Also I’m pretty sure paracetamol has been around for about 150 years or more.
I_Has_A_Hat@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
Also dumb because it wasn’t until 1943 that we had the first diagnosis of autism. OP is just making shit up.