When children are exposed to acetaminophen—also known by the brand name Tylenol or as paracetamol—during pregnancy, they may be more likely to develop neurodevelopmental disorders including autism and ADHD, according to a new study.
It certainly got posted in the context of the current debate. Or this wouldn’t have been posted today. And experts said what people currently think this study means is not at all what its factual/scientific significance is. So I’d say it’s misinformation unless we add a good amount of context here.
I mean for once the study doesn’t seem to say at all what’s in the title here, that tylenol may increse children’s autism risk. As far as my reading skills get me, that’s just not a conclusion of the paper… They kinda say reading some other papers “supports an association” and they “preclude definitive causation”. And they “recommend judicious acetaminophen use […] under medical guidance”. Explicitly not “broad limitation”.
So ultimately what they say is further research needs to be done to either find a link between these things or rule it out. And people need to be careful in the meantime. “…” may cause “…” is what people falsely assume to be the jist of it.
Unfortunately misinformation to outright anti-intellectualism are big these days. I think it’s one of the major issues of society and we better find ways to deal with it, because people are getting hurt by this.
And the “journalist” writing the linked article for Harvard (wtf?) uses exactly the phrases flagged as wrong by the peer-review. On the upside, people here seem to still be able to downvote this.
It certainly got posted in the context of the current debate. Or this wouldn’t have been posted today. And experts said what people currently think this study means is not at all what its factual/scientific significance is. So I’d say it’s misinformation unless we add a good amount of context here.
I mean for once the study doesn’t seem to say at all what’s in the title here, that tylenol may increse children’s autism risk. As far as my reading skills get me, that’s just not a conclusion of the paper… They kinda say reading some other papers “supports an association” and they “preclude definitive causation”. And they “recommend judicious acetaminophen use […] under medical guidance”. Explicitly not “broad limitation”.
So ultimately what they say is further research needs to be done to either find a link between these things or rule it out. And people need to be careful in the meantime. “…” may cause “…” is what people falsely assume to be the jist of it.
that’s usually how pop-sci journalism goes, unfortunately.
Unfortunately misinformation to outright anti-intellectualism are big these days. I think it’s one of the major issues of society and we better find ways to deal with it, because people are getting hurt by this.
And the “journalist” writing the linked article for Harvard (wtf?) uses exactly the phrases flagged as wrong by the peer-review. On the upside, people here seem to still be able to downvote this.