{"id":133057,"date":"2025-09-12T20:54:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-12T20:54:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/133057\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T20:54:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T20:54:08","slug":"pharma-boss-pleaded-with-rfk-jr-to-ditch-bogus-autism-claim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/133057\/","title":{"rendered":"Pharma Boss Pleaded With RFK Jr. to Ditch Bogus Autism Claim"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The CEO of the company that makes Tylenol met privately with Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to ask him not to link the drug to autism.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Kirk Perry, chief executive of Kenvue, met with Kennedy over the active ingredient, acetaminophen, also known as paracetamol, which is essential in the efficacy of the pain-relieving pill, according to a Friday Wall Street Journal <a onclick=\"_sendArticleBodyInlineLinkClickAnalytics(&#039;https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/health\/pharma\/ceo-of-tylenol-maker-lobbied-rfk-jr-not-to-cite-drug-as-autism-cause-in-report-45be9a46&#039;)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/health\/pharma\/ceo-of-tylenol-maker-lobbied-rfk-jr-not-to-cite-drug-as-autism-cause-in-report-45be9a46\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">report<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The Kennedy-helmed agency plans to release the report within the month, according to an <a onclick=\"_sendArticleBodyInlineLinkClickAnalytics(&#039;https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/health\/healthcare\/rfk-jr-hhs-to-link-autism-to-tylenol-use-in-pregnancy-and-folate-deficiencies-e3acbb4c&#039;)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/health\/healthcare\/rfk-jr-hhs-to-link-autism-to-tylenol-use-in-pregnancy-and-folate-deficiencies-e3acbb4c\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">article<\/a> last week from the Journal. As of Friday, the company saw more than $2.2 billion erased from its market cap following the news, according to data on Google Finance. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Perry serves as the New Jersey company\u2019s interim CEO, which was spun off from Johnson &amp; Johnson in 2023. Perry, along with Chief Scientific Officer Caroline Tillett, made the case for the drug\u2019s safety. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Executives highlighted that there are not many other drugs that are safe for pregnant women to take when having a fever, according to the Journal\u2018s report.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"cheats\/2016\/05\/11\/study-tylenol-may-decrease-empathy\/140742-acetaminophen-cheat_ondpte\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/QURFLBM47FOGNPOLCVZ5LEQFR4.jpg\"  width=\"800\" height=\"449\"\/>Tylenol&#8217;s active ingredient is acetaminophen, also known as paracetamol, which is essential to the efficacy of the pain-relieving pill. Brendan Smialowski\/Getty <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">An HHS spokesman told the Daily Beast that claims about this particular meeting are speculative. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cWe are using gold-standard science to get to the bottom of America\u2019s unprecedented rise in autism rates. HHS officials regularly meet with stakeholders to get their perspective about our agenda to Make America Healthy Again,\u201d Andrew Nixon, HHS\u2019 Director of Communications, said in a statement. \u201cAny claims regarding this or any other specific meeting, however, are nothing more than speculation unless officially discussed by HHS.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">A spokeswoman for Kenvue told the Daily Beast the consumer health firm did have a \u201cscientific exchange\u201d with Kennedy and his staff.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">\u201cAs we would with any regulator who reaches out to us, we engaged in a scientific exchange with the Secretary and members of his staff as it relates to the safety of our products,\u201d the spokeswoman said in a statement. \u201cWe are concerned about the potential for consumer confusion and misinformation about the safety of taking acetaminophen during pregnancy, particularly as cough, cold and flu season approaches.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testifies before the House Energy and Commerce Committee Health Subcommittee in the Rayburn House Office Building on June 24, 2025 in Washington, DC\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/FE3B2SEVI5AQ5K5BAMKQI3RMAY.jpg\"  width=\"800\" height=\"533\"\/>The RFK-helmed agency plans to release the report within the month. Kayla Bartkowski\/Getty Images <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">The link between the developmental disorder and Tylenol use is somewhat mixed. Researchers analyzed the results of six studies looking at the link between the pain medication and childhood autism and published their <a onclick=\"_sendArticleBodyInlineLinkClickAnalytics(&#039;https:\/\/ehjournal.biomedcentral.com\/articles\/10.1186\/s12940-025-01208-0&#039;)\" href=\"https:\/\/ehjournal.biomedcentral.com\/articles\/10.1186\/s12940-025-01208-0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">conclusions<\/a> in August in the journal Environmental Health. It found \u201cstrong evidence\u201d to support the case that acetaminophen taken by pregnant women ups the risk for autism in children. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">But an earlier <a onclick=\"_sendArticleBodyInlineLinkClickAnalytics(&#039;https:\/\/jamanetwork.com\/journals\/jama\/fullarticle\/2817406&#039;)\" href=\"https:\/\/jamanetwork.com\/journals\/jama\/fullarticle\/2817406\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">study<\/a> published in 2024 in the Journal of the American Medical Association didn\u2019t find an association when looking at data from nearly 2.5 million children in Sweden.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"AUSTIN, TEXAS - AUGUST 27: Governor Greg Abbott signs Make Texas Healthy Again legislation alongside U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Texas Republican lawmakers at the Capitol in Austin, Wednesday, Aug. 27, 2025. The bill requires the food industry to remove certain additives or add warning labels for those products sold in Texas. (Mikala Compton\/The Austin American-Statesman via Getty Images)\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/WR4VYBL6DJH23PZFL5FX5FB3KI.jpg\"  width=\"800\" height=\"533\"\/>If the RFK&#8217;s report does cite the drug as a link to autism, the firm will fight back hard against the claim. The Austin American-Statesman\/He\/The Austin American-Statesman vi <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Tylenol has faced a number of setbacks over the years, including the Chicago Tylenol murders in 1982, in which an unknown individual put cyanide in bottles, resulting in the deaths of seven people. In 2009, there were a number of recalls of the pain pills due to defective manufacturing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">If the Kennedy report does cite the drug as a link to autism, the firm will fight back hard against the claim, according to the Journal\u2018s report.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">Kenvue has faced a series of challenges since the company went public in 2023, with shares trading around 15 percent.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph\">In July, the firm ousted the former CEO Thibaut Mongon and launched a review of the company. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The CEO of the company that makes Tylenol met privately with Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133058,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[8988,102,6591,9568,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-133057","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-autism","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-medication","11":"tag-robert-f-kennedy-jr","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom","14":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}