Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing the makers of Tylenol, Johnson & Johnson and Kenvue, asserting that they deceptively marketed the medication to pregnant women despite alleged links to autism and other disorders.
“For decades, Johnson & Johnson willfully ignored and attempted to silence the science that prenatal and early-childhood exposure to their acetaminophen products can cause Autism and Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (’ADHD’) in children,” Mr. Paxton wrote in a Tuesday statement. “Despite being well aware of this fact, Tylenol was marketed as a completely safe pain medication for pregnant women, violating Texas’s consumer protection laws.”
The 49-page complaint is filed in Panola County District Court.
It’s the first lawsuit from a state government testing the assertion by President Trump and Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that Tylenol is dangerous during pregnancy. They discouraged pregnant women from taking acetaminophen, Tylenol’s active ingredient.
They claim that taking the over-the-counter medication during pregnancy is linked to an increased risk of autism, despite limited evidence to suggest an association. After the Trump administration’s announcement, the Food and Drug Administration initiated the process for a label change for acetaminophen to reflect the alleged correlation.
“The Trump administration does not believe popping more pills is always the answer for better health,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement. “There is mounting evidence finding a connection between acetaminophen use during pregnancy and autism — and that’s why the administration is courageously issuing this new health guidance.”
The administration’s move caused an uproar in the health care community. Tylenol has doubled down on ads saying the medication is safe and is backed by science, including an Instagram post from the American Academy of Pediatrics.
In response to the Texas lawsuit, Kenvue released a statement about the “perpetuation of misinformation on the safety of acetaminophen and the potential impact that could have on the health of American women and children.”
“We believe there is a deliberate distortion of the facts being driven by the plaintiffs’ bar as this latest filing, which is a common tactic used by plaintiffs’ lawyers in product liability cases, is yet another attempt to revive legal claims that have already been thrown out of federal court,” the statement read.
The science linking Tylenol and autism is contradictory. Some studies have linked frequent use of acetaminophen during pregnancy to autism and ADHD in a child, but others repudiated those findings.
Mr. Paxton, who is running in the GOP primary to unseat Sen. John Cornyn, said that “by holding Big Pharma accountable for poisoning our people, we will help Make America Healthy Again.”
• Mary McCue Bell can be reached at mbell@washingtontimes.com.
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