A federal appeals court is weighing whether to revive hundreds of lawsuits filed by parents who claimed their child’s autism or ADHD was linked to Tylenol.
The cases were dismissed in 2023 after U.S. District Judge Denise Cote ruled that the “unstructured approach adopted by the plaintiffs’ experts permitted cherry-picking, allowed a results-driven analysis, and obscured the complexities, inconsistencies, and weaknesses in the underlying data.”
Two judges on a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit believe the lawsuits were prematurely dismissed. “I’m having trouble understanding why the district court was correct to say that this just is nonsense. This is something that no one should hear,” Circuit Judge Gerard Lynch said this week, as per ABC News. “It just goes out the window, when it seems to me that you have a reputable scientist explaining why each of these judgment calls was made.”
Last month, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson and Kenvue, manufacturers of Tylenol, for concealing the link between prenatal use of acetaminophen and the risk of autism. According to the lawsuit, the manufacturers “had the authority and the duty to change the warning labels of Tylenol products based on the significant scientific evidence, but chose not to.”
Johnson & Johnson later realized the risk posed by the product and “transferred its liabilities associated with Tylenol to Kenvue.”
Meanwhile, Kimberly-Clark announced that it will purchase Tylenol parent company Kenvue and its brands in a deal worth nearly $50 billion.
