A new analysis of dozens of peer-reviewed medical studies found no link between Tylenol use during pregnancy and diagnoses of autism, ADHD or intellectual disability in children.
The research, published Friday in the journal The Lancet, shows that “the best available human evidence does not support a causal link between prenatal Tylenol exposure and autism, ADHD or intellectual disability,” said Dr. Céline Gounder, CBS News medical contributor and senior public health editor at KFF Health News.
“This is as final as it gets,” she said.
Findings support existing recommendations from medical groups like the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists on safety of use acetaminophenthe active ingredient in Tylenol, as a first-line medication to relieve pain or fever during pregnancy, according to the authors.
Researchers looked at more than 40 studies from around the world using questionnaires or medical records to show results and compare pregnancies with and without Tylenol use. These studies included large population-based cohorts from several countries, including the United States, Japan, and Australia.
Gounder called the analysis “methodologically sound,” particularly because of its emphasis on sibling comparisons.
On “CBS Saturday Morning,” Gounder said sibling comparisons can help filter out factors such as genetics, environmental conditions and socioeconomic information.
“To determine whether Tylenol is a risk factor, you need to filter out other potential risks,” Gounder said. “Looking at siblings, you are able to control that genetic element.”
The study authors emphasized the importance of taking into account “baseline risk” of neurodevelopmental disorders within families when calculating the prevalence of such outcomes.
Tylenol and pregnancy
President Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sparked controversy in September, when they said they believed Tylenol use during pregnancy could lead to an increase in autism diagnoses. Kennedy, an outspoken vaccine skeptic, called autism a “preventable disease.”
Medical experts And health agencies around the world has pushed back on these claims, saying evidence shows acetaminophen – known as paracetamol in the UK and Europe – is the safest painkiller option for pregnant women.
In fact, leaving pain and high fever Untreated can be harmful to the mother and fetus, and other painkillers like aspirin and ibuprofen are known to pose risks during pregnancy.
Kenvue, the maker of Tylenol, said, “Strong, independent scientific data clearly shows that taking acetaminophen does not cause autism,” calling it “the safest pain relief option for pregnant women throughout their pregnancy.”
A Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson, Andrew Nixon, responded to the latest study with a statement saying that “many experts have expressed concern about the use of acetaminophen during pregnancy, including Dr. Andrea Baccarelli, dean of the Harvard School of Public Health.” Baccarelli was the lead author of a 2025 study that found “evidence consistent with an association between exposure to acetaminophen during pregnancy and increased incidence of TND” — neurodevelopmental disorders including autism and ADHD.
Although some research suggests that there may be a possible association between acetaminophen use and neurodevelopmental disorders, many of these studies have looked at relatively small groups and have not proven a link. One of those studies mentioned by Mr. Trump and Kennedy was “limited by data variability and significant differences in how the studies defined exposure and outcomes,” say the authors of the Lancet analysis.
Larger, more robust studies, including one in Sweden that followed 2.5 million children for more than 25 years, found no link between the drug and autism. A Japanese study that followed 217,000 children initially appeared to show a slight increase in risk, but those results didn’t hold up when researchers compared siblings to account for genetic factors.
The authors of the new research say that the results of their sibling comparisons and pooled results from several studies suggest that previously reported associations between the drug during pregnancy and autism, ADHD, or intellectual disability may be due to other factors—for example, underlying pain, fever, or the mother’s genetic predisposition—rather than a direct effect of acetaminophen.
Source | domain www.cbsnews.com
