Tylenol and Autism, a Shark Threesome and a Typhoon

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.3 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 29 September 2025

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week’s roundup breaks down the Food and Drug Administration’s decision to revise the safety label for acetaminophen (Tylenol) following the Trump administration’s misleading claims about a link between use of the drug during pregnancy and autism—which were made despite inconsistent data and no proven causation. It also highlights new findings on the safety of COVID vaccination during pregnancy, promising results from a trial of gene therapy for Huntington’s disease and rare animal behaviors, including a notable instance of shark mating and a climate-driven coupling that resulted in a jay hybrid. Plus, the world’s strongest storm of the year reshapes the Pacific typhoon season. Recommended Reading Does Tylenol Use during Pregnancy Cause Autism? What the Research Shows Nobody Knows How Tylenol Really Works Fat Bear Week 2025 Science Quickly is a Signal Awards finalist! Support us by casting your vote before October 9 at the following link: https://vote.signalaward.com/PublicVoting?utm_campaign=signal4_finalists_finalistnotification_092325&utm_medium=email&utm_source=cio#/2025/shows/genre/science E-mail us at [email protected] if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new every day: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for Today in Science, our daily newsletter. Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check the show. The theme music was composed by Dominic Smith. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, this is Ava from Vanta.
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0:21.5	or a growing enterprise managing vendor risk, Banta makes it quick, easy and scalable,
0:26.4	and I'm not to say that because I work here. Get started today at banta.com.
0:40.6	Happy Monday listeners.
0:44.2	For Scientific American Science quickly, I'm Rachel Feltman.
0:47.1	You're listening to our weekly science news roundup.
0:59.4	First, we're bringing in one of our regular contributors from the Siam Newsroom for an update on one of last week's biggest stories.
1:05.9	Effective immediately, the FDA will be notifying physicians at the use of acetya... Well, let's see how we say that.
1:09.0	Acidaminophen. Acetaminophen.
1:12.6	That's President Donald Trump at a White House press conference last Monday,
1:17.6	talking about the supposed ties between a pregnant person's use of acetaminephine,
1:21.6	which is the generic name for Tylenol, and Autism Spectrum Disorder.
1:25.6	Scientific American Associate Editor Alison Partial wrote a piece last week unpacking the actual
1:30.9	data.
1:31.8	Here she is now to summarize a few major points.
1:35.1	So a handful of studies have shown a link between Tylenol use in pregnancy and autism
1:39.7	diagnoses, but importantly, that increase in risk has been relatively small and quite inconsistent across studies.
	...

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