I seriously doubt that Tylenol is responsible for the increased number of diagnoses of autism. I do think it would be interesting to know if there were a correlation between maternal headaches during pregnancy and autism in their children. That would probably be quite difficult to determine.
As I’ve written multiple times here I think that autism is multi-factorial, i.e. it doesn’t have just one cause, and I suspect that the increase in diagnosed cases has more to do with how and why it’s being diagnosed than any factor in the environment.
If pressed I would list genetic factors, selective breeding, and, broadly, environmental factors including chemicals in the food we eat and beverages we drink, the air we breath, the things we touch, and in the soil, and social factors like early childhood upbringing. It’s a complicated subject and I don’t believe there’s any “magic bullet” solution to it.
It’s mostly a change in how we diagnose. We have always had kids who cause trouble in school or dont do well there. They got kicked out or sent to special classes. Now you can give them a diagnosis, a treatment plan and meds. While the rate of autism diagnosis has increased high school graduation rates have increased so maybe it’s not such a bad thing.
On tylenol, there are a few studies that show a mild association but it’s clouded by not knowing why they were taking tylenol. To date, the largest and generally thought to best quality study showed no association.
Steve
Its interesting; in recent years, several observation studies have pointed towards a small association (note this is not causation) between Tylenol and autism. This is a pretty objective statement of what is known (https://ysph.yale.edu/news-article/what-the-research-says-about-autism-and-tylenol-use-during-pregnancy/).
The key part is its an association (if there is one), so it may mean there’s a common cause that tends to increase risk for autism in pregnancy and drives a need pain for relief; that autism in pregnancy causes a higher need for pain relief or finally addressing pain relief via Tylenol can increase the risk from autism in pregnancy.
The uncomfortable truth is there is an addressable risk for autism; parental age (having kids after 40 increases the risk more then 2X vs having them before 30), but its lot easier to talk about “Tylenol” or “vaccines” then to address that.
Kind of something seeing the anti-vaccine groups melting down because autism isn’t being blamed on vaccines (if its true).