How many astonishing revelations can the nation handle in one day?
The New York Times reports:
A scientific review of 43 studies on acetaminophen use during pregnancy concluded that there was no evidence that the painkiller increased the risk of autism or other neurodevelopmental disorders.
“We found no clinically important increase in the risk of autism, A.D.H.D. or intellectual disability,” Dr. Asma Khalil, a professor of obstetrics and maternal fetal medicine at St. George’s Hospital, University of London, and the lead author of the report, said at a news briefing. The study was published on Friday in the British medical journal The Lancet.
Wait, so Robert F. Kennedy Jr. wasn’t telling the truth about the safety of a particular medical treatment? Why did his Health and Human Services Department say that acetaminophen — more commonly known by its brand name, Tylenol — causes autism when used by pregnant women?
A scientific review, published last August by researchers at Harvard and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and cited by Mr. Trump’s health advisers in September, concluded that there was evidence for a link between acetaminophen and autism.
But some of the studies included in that review did not account for underlying factors that might be driving the connection, Dr. Khalil said. For example, women typically take acetaminophen because of health issues during their pregnancies, including infections and fevers, and those health problems themselves can increase the risk of neurodevelopmental disorders.
The new review excluded any studies that did not account for such possible confounding factors. And it gave more weight to studies that tried to account for the role of genetics, comparing siblings born to the same mother. Genetics is known to be a major contributor to autism risk.
Ah, genetics. Who would have thought this could be an important factor to a genetic disorder.