Tylenol Autism and The Fear of Queers

PLUS: real life Gattaca babies, a review of Smile, and some thoughts about shame and compost

Good Sunday, my slugs! I haven’t done a round-up in a while, mostly because I just needed to take a break from looking at headlines, but everything cycles back around eventually, so today we’re talking about:

• The Tylenol Autism lawsuits

• What the pronatalist movement of wealthy tech entrepreneurs has to do with that

• My first compost pile and the necessity of making mistakes out in the open

• A review of the new horror movie, Smile (there will be spoilers, but I left this one intentionally at the end so you can skip it if you wish)

---

this image will make more sense in 400 words okay

The Tylenol Autism Lawsuits

65 lawsuits have been filed in the US arguing that acetaminophen causes autism and ADHD — they’ve been consolidated into what’s called a mass tort, a civil suit in federal court with multiple plaintiffs against a few defendants. In this case, it’s 65 parents vs 9 major corporations, including Walmart, Target, and CVS.

Plaintiffs are arguing that these corporations neglected to provide proper warning labels about use during pregnancy on their acetaminophen products, which they believe affected their childrens’ development in utero, resulting in autism and ADHD diagnoses.

I am conflicted about this, because obviously, fuck Walmart — I never want to argue in favor of corporations. But on the other hand, I have serious issues with the reductive claim that Tylenol causes autism and ADHD, and I worry about how a win in such a massive court case will affect the public imaginary.

So, where is this coming from?