By the Archbishop of Selsey

There was a time when the family medicine cabinet represented the ordinary mercies of Providence — a fever brought down, a headache relieved, a child comforted. Yet in our present age, even the simplest remedy is caught up in a theatre of fear. Paracetamol, known in America as Tylenol, has been transformed from a trusted household staple into the villain of a thousand conspiracies. What has changed? Not the substance of the drug, but the substance of our culture.

We live in an era where suspicion is stronger than truth, and fear louder than reason. The story of paracetamol and autism tells us less about medicine and more about the sickness of the modern mind.

Science and Its Distortions
Let us begin with the facts. A major Scandinavian study published in JAMA Psychiatry (2023) compared siblings — one exposed prenatally to acetaminophen, another not — and found no association with autism, ADHD, or intellectual disability¹. In plain speech: within the same family, the presence or absence of paracetamol exposure made no difference.

Yet a different review, published in 2025, proclaimed the evidence “strong” for a link. Social media seized on this word, “strong,” and translated it into “proven.” A Johns Hopkins study in 2019 observed correlations in umbilical cord blood, and activists declared a “direct connection”². Even images were invented to persuade: a grotesque diagram showing vaccination, fever, Tylenol, and finally a weeping child labelled “autism.”

Here we see the perennial temptation: to mistake suggestion for certainty, association for causation. The lie has wings; truth must walk on crutches.

Regulators, Lawsuits, and the Spectacle of Fear
What then do regulators say? The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has proposed adding a caution to labels, not because causation is proved, but because in our climate of suspicion, silence itself would be seen as complicity³. The European and British authorities have stood firm: paracetamol remains the recommended analgesic in pregnancy, when used prudently⁴.

And what of the courts? In 2024, American lawsuits alleging that Tylenol caused autism were dismissed. The judge ruled that the expert testimony failed the very test of scientific reliability. Yet though the law cast out the claim, the idea remains in circulation, because fear feeds on itself⁵.

The courtroom has become theatre, the news cycle a pulpit of panic. In such an age, the burden of proof is no longer on the accuser but on the accused.

The Moral Disease Beneath the Medical Debate
What is at stake is not merely whether paracetamol is safe, but whether our civilisation can still distinguish truth from error, evidence from conjecture, prudence from hysteria.

This age of distrust is the child of modernism: once we deny objective truth in theology, it is not long before we deny it in science. If there is no Magisterium in the Church, there will be no authority in medicine. If we will not believe the prophets, neither will we believe the epidemiologists.

We have seen this same drama play out in the vaccine debates. The Church affirms that parents have the duty of prudence, not of panic. To refuse all medicine out of fear is not holiness but presumption. To treat speculation as revelation is to exchange science for superstition.

The Catholic Response: Prudence and Trust
What then should a Catholic do? The answer is as old as St. Thomas: virtue is found in prudence, the golden mean between recklessness and cowardice.

Paracetamol has been used for generations. The most rigorous studies show no causal link with autism. Regulators advise moderation, not abstinence. The Church teaches that the goods of creation are not to be despised, but received with thanksgiving and discernment.

Yet we must also be vigilant. The family is the first guardian of life. If we surrender discernment to lawsuits and internet images, we fail in our duty. Prudence requires both attentiveness to scientific evidence and resistance to the theatre of fear.

Conclusion: The Tyranny of Fear and the Triumph of Truth
My beloved, what the paracetamol debate reveals is the deeper malady of our age: the tyranny of fear. In a culture that no longer believes in truth, every whisper becomes an accusation, every study a conspiracy, every medicine a menace.

But Christ did not die to make us slaves of suspicion. “Perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18). The Christian is called to discern, not to panic; to reason, not to rage. The medicine cabinet is not the tabernacle — it does not hold the Bread of Life. Yet neither should it become the idol of fear.

We must walk the narrow way: trusting in God, using His gifts with prudence, rejecting both complacency and hysteria. For if fear reigns in the mind, faith cannot reign in the heart.

And so I say, with Fulton Sheen: “Truth does not need to be defended, only proclaimed.” The truth is this: no evidence proves that paracetamol causes autism. The greater danger lies not in a bottle of tablets, but in a culture addicted to fear.

For a more indepth presentation visit Nuntiatoria.org

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1. U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, In re Acetaminophen ASD/ADHD Litigation, dismissal ruling 2024; appeals pending.
2. Gustavson, K. et al., JAMA Psychiatry, 2023 – Scandinavian sibling-comparison cohort study.
3. Wang, C. et al., JAMA Psychiatry, 2019 – Johns Hopkins cord blood study.
4. FDA, “FDA announces proposed labeling changes for acetaminophen products,” 2025.
5. EMA/MHRA joint statements, 2025 – guidance on paracetamol in pregnancy.

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