Welcome to Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health,

where we bring evidence, experience, and perspective to make sense of today's leading health challenges.

If you have questions or ideas for us, please send an email to public health question at jh.h.com.

That's public health question at jh.u.org for future podcast episodes.

Hey listeners, it's Lindsay Smith-Rogers, and today, the safety of acetaminophen, otherwise known as Tylenol, in pregnancy.

Now, this is a podcast in two parts.

First, Dr. Josh Sharfstein speaks with Professor Brian Lee, an epidemiologist at Drexel University,

and a PhD graduate of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Now, Professor Lee conducted one of the largest studies to assess whether acetaminopin use might be associated with autism and other neurodevelopmental outcomes.

Second, Dr. Sharfstein dials up Professor Elizabeth Stewart, the chair of the Department of Biostatistics at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Dr. Stewart is an expert in assessing cause and effect relationships.

They discuss Dr. Lee's study and how best to sort through multiple studies with conflicting

results.

Now, we know this podcast runs a little longer than our usual episodes, but this is so we

can get into more details with our two guests on this very important

topic. One bonus, if you listen to the end, you'll be able to identify what a causal crossword

is. Before we turn to part one, a disclaimer. The conversations on public health on call are

between the participants and do not represent the position of Johns Hopkins University. Let's listen.

Professor Brian Lee, thank you so much for joining me today in Public Health on call. How are you doing?

Good, Josh. Thank you for having me.

It might help if you could introduce yourself and how I came to be calling you on this topic to our audience.

Sure. I'm a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at Drexel University, and my team and I in

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