This is Science Friday. I'm Flora Lichten.

If you tuned into the news at all this week, you likely heard this new medical guidance from the Trump administration.

Acetaminophen. Is that okay?

Which is basically commonly known as Tylenol during pregnancy can be associated with a very

increased risk of autism. So taking Tylenol is not good. You may have also heard the backlash to this advice from many experts who disagree and worry about the risks of avoiding Tylenol during pregnancy.

And then there are concerns coming from the autistic community around the narrative that autism is inherently bad, a scourge that needs to be eliminated.

And there are concerns that moms are being blamed for having autistic children.

There is a lot to unpack about genetics, about vaccines, but today I want to focus on the acetaminophen piece.

If I saw these headlines while I was pregnant, I would want the nitty-gritty,

where this idea came from, and what exactly researchers have found. So today, we are digging into

the details with an epidemiologist who led one of the largest peer-reviewed studies looking at this

exact question. What do we know about the link between acetaminopin

and autism? Dr. Brian Lee is an epidemiologist at Drexel University and the senior author on a paper

in JAMA about acetaminifin use during pregnancy and children's risk of autism and other

neurodevelopmental outcomes. Brian, welcome to Science Friday. Hi, thank you for having me.

So this Tylenol link to autism claim, you know, didn't come out of nowhere. You have looked at

this association yourself. What made you decide to study this in the first place?

Well, you know, acetaminophen is one of the most widely used medications in the world,

and I think it is proper to question whether or not a medication during pregnancy is going to be safe.

Our team looked at the available evidence, and basically there are methodological limitations

to the existing evidence that our

study wanted to overcome. Before we get into your study, I mean, what was the available evidence?

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