Research on acetaminophen use during pregnancy is not new, as my colleague Azeen Ghorayshi, a science reporter, recently explained. So why did the White House make this announcement now?
Last month, scholars published a review of 46 existing studies. Taken together, they suggest there is evidence for a connection between acetaminophen use during pregnancy and neurodevelopmental disorders.
Those findings circulated widely on social media, including among autism parent groups, many of whom consider Kennedy a champion of their cause.
But the researchers cautioned people about inferring too much: “We cannot answer the question about causation,” Diddier Prada, an epidemiologist at Mt. Sinai’s medical school and the first author on the review, told The Times.
Most doctors believe autism cannot be easily attributed to a single cause; rather, they say, it involves a complex mix of genetic and environmental factors.