Going Under: Anesthesia Answered with Dr. Brian Schmutzler
Going Under: Anesthesia Answered is a podcast with renowned physician and anesthesiologist Dr. Brian Schmutzler. Together with Award-Winning Co-Host and television journalist, Vahid Sadrzadeh, the podcast aims to answer not only your most pressing anesthesia questions but to provide the most up-to-date medical data available.
This weekly medical podcast will release a new episode every Thursday at 5 am. Thanks in advance for being a listener.
Don't forget to send your questions to Dr. Brian Schmutzler on social media and his website at www.drbrianschmutzler.com.
Going Under: Anesthesia Answered with Dr. Brian Schmutzler
Tylenol, Autism, and the Evidence
In this week's episode of Going Under: Anesthesia Answered, Dr. Brian Schmutzler and Vahid Sadrzadeh weigh the evidence behind the Tylenol–autism debate, explain how acetaminophen actually works, and share practical guidance on dosing during pregnancy and everyday care.
Have a question for Dr. Brian Schmutzler?
Submit them to any of the social media pages below or on his website at https://www.drbrianschmutzler.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drbrianschmutzler
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drbrianschmutzler
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@drbrianschmutzler?lang=en
Provider or Medical Student?? Subscribe to his Patreon Page to get exclusive content and access to Medical Blocks:
https://www.patreon.com/user?u=89356957&utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=join_link
Thanks to our show sponsor: Butterfly Network
https://store.butterflynetwork.com/us/en/?rsCode=BRIAN25
You can get $750 off the latest IQ3. Check it out at ButterflyNetwork.com
This is going under Anesthesia Answered with Dr. Brian Schmutzler. I'm Vahit Sadarzati. We're brought to you by the Butterfly Network.
SPEAKER_00:We are. Alright, I'm going to let you in on something that's completely changed the way I practice. I've been using Butterfly Probes for years. It's a portable ultrasound that plugs right into my compatible smartphone or tablet, so I can start scanning at the bedside in seconds. If you've used older versions or even if you're new to handheld ultrasound, let me tell you why this new IQ3 is a game changer and really impressive. First off, having an ultrasound that literally fits in my pocket means I can move faster, whether it's vascular access, procedural guidance, or just getting real-time insights from my patients. And the tech inside this tiny device is pretty amazing. Biplane imaging lets me see short and long access views simultaneously. Huge for procedural guidance and a great tool for learners. The new needle out of plane preset even shifts the scan plane digitally so I can see the needle tip sooner, which makes a real difference when precision matters. And the image quality, honestly, the IQ3 holds up against some of the high-end cart-based systems I've used. That's impressive for something this portable. If you're looking for a device that supports your practice, I can't recommend the Butterfly IQ three enough. And right now, they're running a special offer. You can get$750 off the latest IQ three. Check it out at ButterflyNetwork.com.
SPEAKER_01:We are once again talking about a hot topic in the news. Tylenol and autism. Is there a correlation? And now the case kind of is ramping up against said medication, yeah. Medication. Uh and you know, are lawmakers getting behind this uh, you know, potential lawsuit against uh Tylenol the brand. Is there a lawsuit now? What the hell they're talking about a potential lawsuit uh because people are coming forward and claiming uh because of this, sure. Okay, so let's just break it down piece by piece here.
SPEAKER_00:So what is Tylenol? Dr. Brian SpongeBob. That's number one. What is Tylenol? What is Tylenol? Tylonol is a cetaminophane. It's a centrally acting pain reliever and fever reducer. So it works in the brain. Okay, so how does a work work? Well, break it down for us scientifically. I'm gonna have to go back and look at the exact mechanism of action. Uh so it it reduces it it activates a portion of the brain that reduces fever and pain. I can't remember the exact amidophil. Right. It's not like the like it's not like Advil or Neproxin.
SPEAKER_01:It's not touching the nerves itself. The peripheral nerves. Peripheral nerves.
SPEAKER_00:Right, right. It's not reducing inflammation the way that that the cox inhibitors do. That's what it's called. C O X, whatever, one or two or both.
SPEAKER_01:So it's actually It's working in the brain. The sensors in the brain that says you should stop feeling this pain now. But it's not fixing the pain.
SPEAKER_00:Correct, correct. So that's Tylenol. It's been around for a long, long time, acetaminophen. Helps with heart attacks? No. It's not a it's that an advil. That's an a that's an aspirin. Oh, that's an aspirin. Okay. Different things. Yeah, so those are those are all um uh anti-inflammatories, right? Those are coxtube. Advil, neproxin, aspirin, those medications. Tylenol is a completely different class of drugs, goes to the brain. Okay. Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Um now, where does the link come in between what they have so it's pregnant mothers who have taken Tylenol during pregnancy, yeah, and they claim that the child who was born has autism.
SPEAKER_00:So they don't know the mechanism, and the studies, so there's been three of them. There was a Swedish study five, six years ago, small study. So a while ago, yeah, there was a um study at Sinai in New York, uh, and then there's been a couple of uh people who have done some like just just position papers on it recently, but the big one was the one at Sinai. And it just to be completely accurate, the Sinai study does not say that Tylenol causes autism. It says that there's a correlative link between taking Tylenol when you're pregnant and kids having autism. So correlation is not causation. So this is like a statistics thing, right? So just because two things are true and happen in time at the same time does not mean that one causes the other. So just because you took Tylenol at when you were pregnant, doesn't mean and because your child has autism. It doesn't mean they're it doesn't mean they're causative. It doesn't mean that taking Tylenol causes the fetus, then baby, then child to have autism. What okay, so autism. Yeah. Okay. Break down medically speaking. Oh, so there's a wide range. They're they're called autism spectrum disorders now, and I can't remember the exact criteria that that that um they use to diagnose autism, but essentially it's inability to form connections, um, you know, inappropriate social behavior. Um, and and I mean you can you can think to the to the kind of farthest degree, what what is somebody that you know with autism? You know, what do they act like? Now, there's probably some degree of diagnosis here, right? So, like when we didn't really diagnose some of those autism spectrum disorders like Asperger's disease 25, 30, 50 years ago, you would just say that that person is different, right? They just they act different. Now you now there's a diagnosis. So there's probably an increase in diagnosis, but I don't think the increase in diagnosis correlates to the I don't know, it's like a thousandfold increase in in autism diagnoses. I I don't think that just you know broadening the definition of autism has increased it that much. Now, yeah, go ahead. We're gonna ask.
SPEAKER_01:Well, no, I I I'm just wondering, okay, so you know you just explained medically what autism is. Yeah. You explain medically how Tylenol affects your system. Yeah. How does it how does it come together? Right. Medically speaking, how does that happen? So bet best guess.
SPEAKER_00:If if it's true that autism uh has some link to taking Tylenol while while you're pregnant, that Tylenol does pass the bro the uh the placenta barrier, the the blood placenta barrier. It does good it does get to the baby. So the I whatever you put in your system, not not everything, but yeah, but Tylenol definitely does get to the baby. Potentially it goes to that portion of the brain where it typically affects fever and um and pain and is detrimental while it's still growing, while the brain's still growing. I don't know. I don't think that that none of those studies have really postulated what they think if it is a causative effect or a causative, you know, uh relationship. None of them have really posited how they think that Tylenol causes the autism. So I mean it it's interesting, right? And it's not it's not new. I think it's been politicized because of who said it, but it's not new, right? Tylenol itself has for years said we don't recommend, and this is another topic we can get into, but we don't we don't recommend, we also don't not recommend, but we don't recommend. We're not saying, oh, this is a great drug, take it when you're pregnant, right? It's not like folic acid, where they say you should take folic acid when you're pregnant, right? So so um it falls under a class C during pregnancy, which means there is not enough data to recommend for or against. So you have class A, B, C, D, and E, I think. Um, and so A is completely safe during pregnancy, right? So folic acid. If you take methylated folate when you're pregnant, that is 100% safe during pregnancy. Then you have drugs like phthalidamide, right? You you're remembering about thalidomide, right? That's it, that's an E, I think is what it's called, which is known documented detrimental effects to human babies. Growth. Yeah. So so you've got all the way the spectrum from A to E. And almost everything falls in C because nobody takes a stance on whether you should take the medication while you're pregnant, and nobody's gonna run a study where they're like, all right, we'll give these women Tylenol and give these women a placebo.
SPEAKER_01:Like, where does you know uh deli meat fall into?
SPEAKER_00:Well, that's a food, not a medication, so it wouldn't fall in there. Um, I mean just randomly asking, like, right? I mean, there's all these things that come out. There's some potential detrimental effects that can come from deli meat, from raw eggs, from raw fish, right? So But they're not medications, they're not medications, right? So they wouldn't fall in there, but almost every medication, so Benadryl, uh, Zofran, uh everything, all these medications are class C, right? There are very few that are even class B, which is there may be detriment effects, but we don't think so. And then very, very few that are class A. And then the only ones that are class E are the ones that they've already determined because a bunch of pregnant women took them and had problems.
SPEAKER_01:Well, even ADHD medicine, ADD medicine, all of it, right?
SPEAKER_00:All of it is class C, right? They don't they don't really take a stand on it, right? And it's because you can't you can't ethically do a study where you tell people to take it versus not take it, right? Um so but let's get back to the politization. Politis is politis politicism. Making it political. Let's get back to them making it them being people making it political. So what the FDA came out and said is don't take it if you don't have to, and if you do take the lowest dose possible, that's what we tell people for every possible medication out there, right? We don't say, hey, Fahid, I know you have a headache, go take 50 Tylenol or 50 Advil, right? We don't say that. You say take one Advil. Or two. Or two if you absolutely need it.
SPEAKER_01:And is there like a milligram dosage that they're recommending people? Tylenol? Yes.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I mean the the standard, five hundred standard dose is 325. That's the lowest dose pill, 325 milligrams. They have 500 milligram pills, which I think is extra strength. And then Tylenol is a big issue. We should get into the bigger issue of tylenol, because tylenol is a a really dangerous drug. Really? Yeah, it's honestly yeah. So we'll get into that. But actually, as Gen Z says, actually. Actually, he's my kid say that much. My kid, yeah. Actually, actually, um, yeah. So um, if you take 325 milligrams, you take two of those, that's 650 milligrams, you take that. Is that considered a high dose? No, not really. Every every six to eight hours. So, what all the guidelines are now is chronic usage. So if you're taking a lot of Tylenol, you shouldn't take more than 2,500 to 3,000 milligrams a day. That's a lot of Tylenol, acute usage. You shouldn't, even if you're taking it, let's say you take it once a month, you shouldn't never take more than 4,000 milligrams a day. That's not that much. That's a thousand milligrams four times every six hours, right? So two, five hundred pills, two extra strength. That's that seems like a lot to me. But people do it. And they so here's the other problem. There's tylenol in everything. There's all the pain medications. So Yeah, I mean, when you when you're like sick, right. All the prescription medications, hydrocodone, so Vicadin is hydrocodone and tylenol, oxy uh percocet, dayquil is nyquil. Dayquil, nyquil. There's a tylenol in a lot of things. So you can really easily get the dose of Tylenol up high. If you're if you don't feel good and you do a dayquil, and then you do Tylenol to get your fever down, and then you take more Tylenol, and then you take Nyquil, and I mean you can easily get to 5,000 milligrams of Tylenol. Is that so is all dumb question?
SPEAKER_01:Is all acetaminophen Tylenol? No, tylenol's a brand name. It's a brand. Yeah, we can't do that. But who makes that? Who makes Tylenol? Yes. Bear makes Tylenol.
SPEAKER_00:Bear, are they behind most acetaminophens? No, there's a bunch of generic companies. So the way it works, you you patent a drug. Yep. Um the way it works now, Tylenol, I don't think, was ever prescription, but you patent a drug, you make it prescription, then you cut the dose down, you make it over the counter, and then once it goes off patent, then anybody else can make it. So you can walk into Martin's and get Martin's brand, acetaminophin. You can walk into Meyer and get Martin Meyer's brand, Target brand. You can order Amazon's brand online, right? You can get any kind of ty uh any kind of acetaminophine. I I use it interchangeably because people know the word Tylenol, but Tylenol is just acetaminophen. So So what would you use instead?
SPEAKER_01:Or would you you would just think acetaminophine in general is what you're saying? Or are you do you have a specific not issue, but you have specific questions about Tylenol itself? No, no, acetaminoland or acetamine.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, tylenol, the brand. And you did your PhD on this specific thing, right? Not Tylenol specifically. No, but pain but pain man uh uh you know the mechanisms of of pain, you know, how pain works in the case. And so why is why why is acetaminophen so dangerous? It's an incredibly dangerous medication. People think, oh, it's just over the counter, it's tylenol, you give that to kids. So there's a few things. One, it's really easy, like we talked about, to get a really high dose. And what it does is it goes to your liver, it destroys your liver. Um and it, I can't remember, it's it's NAP QI, I think. NAP QI is the is the um is the enzyme that it breaks breaks it down into. But anyway, so people think it's safe. You get a high enough dose, it will destroy your liver, it will send you into fulminant liver failure, and there's no antidote for it, and there's really nothing you can do for it. People don't understand that. So, like sometimes we used to see this a lot.
SPEAKER_01:And are you talking about high dosages for a long time, or are you talking about even low dosages?
SPEAKER_00:So high dosage, so medium dosages for a long time. So if you get up in that 3,500 to 4,000 milligrams a day for more than about six months, you have a high risk of of liver failure from that. If you do more than about four and a half, four forty five hundred to five thousand milligrams in one day, your chance for fulminant liver failure goes way up. And so we used to see this. There would be people who would take, you know, do a essentially a you know, suicide attempt, but they're like, Oh, just take Tylenol, you know, it doesn't matter. I'll take 20 Tylenol, 30 Tylenol, it's not gonna hurt me because it's Tylenol, right? So it's like a you know, cry for help type suicide attempt. And then they get to the hospital and you're like, nothing I can do for you. You're probably gonna die. So not because of liver. Because of liver, yeah, because of liver. It shuts it down immediately. And there's no antidote for it. There's basically nothing you can do, it's just supportive care. So people don't fully understand that Tylenol is not, you know, if you take too many Advil or a medicine like um um, you know, ibuprofen, which is what Advil is, or even aspirin, those medications can thin your blood a little bit. There's ways that you can counteract that, and they can affect your kidneys, but you can go on dialysis. You can't live without a liver. I mean, you just can't. So you could get a liver transplant, it's probably the only way to save you if you get into fulminant liver failure from acetaminophen overdose.
SPEAKER_01:So I'm gonna ask the obvious question. You don't take acetaminophil at all? Not really. What do you take instead? I I'll take advil. You'll take a headache. Will it, as a medical professional who's studied this, does it act the same or does it it's different mechanisms.
SPEAKER_00:I think Advil is a much better pain reliever. Okay. Acetaminophen is probably a better fever reducer, but then you can also make the argument, maybe not in pregnancy, but certainly as an adult, you should just have a fever because the fever kills whatever bug is inside of you. So there's no reason, I mean, it can make it feel a little better to not have a few. So what do you give kids in that circumstance? So you can give kids Advil, you can give kids, it's Motrin in kids that the uh ibuprofen, it's you know, as as early as I think a year or even earlier than that, you can give Motrin. Um, they're a little bit hesitant to give it to pregnant women just because there's some effects that can happen, especially early on in pregnancy. So um, you know, again though, I the point is giving the public the knowledge and saying use the lowest dose possible and only use it if you absolutely need it. I I don't understand why that's controversial. I understand that they think the person saying it is controversial because of who they are. Who is that? Yeah, but I don't I don't think I don't think saying, hey, there might be a problem here. There's a Swedish study, a study out of Sinai, and um a guy out of uh I can't remember where he was from, but there's another fellow uh who is doing some of these this work as well. They have no tie to the current administration. The Swedish study happened before this administration was in place, and the the Sinai study was actually a really well done, big study. And I I've read it. You cannot say there's there's a a causative link. There is nothing in that study that makes me say this is causative, but there's a correlative link. So why not if it's not something you absolutely if it was like don't drink water when you're pregnant, because water will cause you to potentially have a kid with autism. That would be different, right? There is a lot of benefit to water and you're willing to take that risk. If you don't need the Tylenol, don't take the Tylenol. I mean, I t I say the same thing with um with uh Zofran. So a lot of women get get ill, get you know, sick, right, you know, morning sickness when they're pregnant. A lot of women take Zofran. It's probably fine, but I wouldn't recommend it if you can get away without doing it. There's other things you can do, ginger, sometimes that helps. Um when my wife was pregnant, we did um electroacupuncture, so or uh acupressure. So I'd I'd do acupressure on her. That you know, that helps some. Was it perfect? No, but it helps some. Um, you know, probably there's medicines out there with um B vitamins and um Benadryl in them. Um, you know, Benadryl's not totally safe either, but in my opinion, probably safer than Zofran. So there's other things you can try. But again, the point is there's a big study out there, several studies out there now, that say there might be a correlative link between taking Tylenol when you're pregnant and having children who are autistic. Is it the end-all be all of why we have more autism now? No. Is the study a clear causative link between Tylenol during pregnancy and autism? No. But the recommendation that you take the medication as little as possible, as let you know, as infrequently as possible, and only when you absolutely need it, is 100% accurate. 100%. And I tell people with that with every medication: if you sprain your ankle, here's some pain medication, take it as little as possible and as infrequently as possible so that you stay comfortable, but that you don't take a bunch that you don't need. And then the and I'll just say it, the idiots on social media who are going and pounding whole bottles of Tylenol to just prove the administration wrong. Now you're hearing about many of them ending up in the ER and some dying from fulminant liver failure. It's like what are you proving in that circumstance? Anything, yeah. Because at least everything that I've read and heard, it's not political. It's literally saying take as little as possible. Right. It's just it's just frustrating. And and I if any correlation is not causation, is what you're saying. That's correct. And I uh my my um instructor when I was in doing my PhD, my mentor um used to always say true, true, unrelated. So you something can be true and another thing can be true, and they can be in the same realm and you can think they're causative, but unless you've shown me, and there's a four-step process in in um in research that you have to show, and I'm not gonna go through the whole that because it's boring and I don't remember all the specifics of it, but unless you can show me those four things, there's not a cause, there's not a causative link. And so she'd always say, you know, you'd say something like, you know, um, I've got a bottle of water on here and the table's wet. But she'd say, true, true, unrelated. Prove to me that the bottle of water on the table made the table wet. You haven't done that. They haven't done that in the studies. So it could be true, true, unrelated. Right? Interesting. So that's what causes. And plus taking those five, six extra steps is a lot of money, it's a lot of research, it's a lot of well, and ethically, I don't think you can do it at this point. A lot of things you can't study ethically. You can't knowingly give somebody something that you think's going to hurt them.
SPEAKER_01:So for a study that would be unethical.
SPEAKER_00:Right. And you can't knowingly withhold something from somebody that you know will help them. As soon as you as soon as you recognize that to a certain level of s of certainty, you have to stop the study. And there's lots of studies that that have done that. So I think it's really hard to study that. Um, if you take nothing, if the audience takes nothing away from this, the one thing I would tell you is even over-the-counter medications, even you know, natural supplements, medications, taking them comes with risk. And taking the least amount needed as infrequently as possible is the best policy, no matter what the medication is. You know what I say? What? It's called a drug for a reason. Oh, that's true, or a supplement or whatever. Anything. It's it's called whatever it is for a reason. Yep. Uh and there's side effects to every medication, every single one. Even if you think it's totally safe, there are side effects to every medication.
SPEAKER_01:Plus, there's a lot of medications that that are newer that we don't know full side effects of 20, 30, 40, 50 years down the road. I mean, and this is a true statement here. You know, my father has Parkinson's. Uh huh. Parkinson's doesn't run through our family. He was a farmer. Could be. Because of the pesticides? Could be, maybe. Yeah. We don't know. Yep. There was a there was a uh a study done in Brazil that a bunch of farmers in Brazil, because of the pesticides, a bunch of them had side effects in Parkinson's. Yep. I mean, side effects last in everything you do, or there's a an effect. Any chem any chemical, any chemical, any drug that you're exposed to, including medication, even over-the-counter medication that you think is safe because you can buy it in Walmart. Always think there is a big bigger person behind that, right? There's a company behind that.
SPEAKER_00:I don't think there's any conspiracy here.
SPEAKER_01:No, I'm not saying there's a conspiracy, I'm just saying, like they're out to make money too.
SPEAKER_00:Sure. Yeah. Right? But I mean, I don't think they're making a whole lot of money out of Tylenol. You can get like a bottle of 500. I don't think there's any big conspiracy out there where came out and was like, we know it causes autism, we gotta hide this. Like that, I don't think that that's I don't think that that's accurate either.
SPEAKER_01:But over time, yeah, over the last 30, 40, 50 years, whatever it's been, yeah. Now we're starting to see the effects.
SPEAKER_00:But I also don't think there's a conspiracy on the other side where they're like, oh yeah, we're gonna get Tylenol, we're gonna, you know, we're gonna accuse Tylenol being the end all be all of autism, right?
SPEAKER_01:If you don't think anything in moderation at this point, you know, I mean, when I'm sick, I'm not taking a whole bottle of Dayquill. Exactly. Exactly. You know, I mean you just gotta be smart with some things.
SPEAKER_00:And and I think, like I said, you can make the argument that as an adult or even as a kid, if your fever is moderate, not super high, but moderate, do you really need to take something to bring it down? I know you don't feel well, but there's a reason your body has a fever. It's killing the bugs that are making you sick. So is there really a reason to take Tylenol? And I mean, you could even make the argument that there are a lot better ways to treat a headache than Tylenol or or even ibuprofen, right? I mean, most headaches, the exception of migraines or you know, organic headaches where you have like a brain tumor, water is the best thing you can do. Right? So drinking a lot of water, typically it's a dehydration thing. Sometimes it can be related to caffeine, like if you if you drink a lot of caffeine, you need caffeine or you drank too much caffeine. Um I mean, there's a lot of other things that you could do for headaches. So, I mean, I and I, you know, I take Advil. If I have a headache, I just pop it Advil because it makes the headache go away in 15 minutes instead of drinking a big thing of water and laying down for a minute and doing all the things that would probably be better, but you are an expert in this.
SPEAKER_01:So we will Yeah, I mean, if you get a PhD in something, I I think you're an I'm not an expert in acetaminophen and isoprophen and fever and autism, right? But you you you have studied pain management and mechanisms, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And mechanisms. So you are an expert. So here's the other question, though. Why do we think autism is more prevalent? Um Aside from the diagnosis piece, which we already talked about.
SPEAKER_01:Well, that's I mean, that's right. I mean So let's say this existed 30, 40 years ago, which it did. Right.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, okay. You see a lot more kids with a lot more severe, at least anecdotally, you see a lot more kids with a lot more severe autism type symptoms.
SPEAKER_01:I'm not I'm not being political here. I'm just putting it out there.
SPEAKER_00:Or boy, I'm gonna get a lot of crap for this. You said it, not me. That's Vahit's Adrizade, not Dr. Brian Schmutzer saying whatever he's like. We're not gonna say that. One, two, three, four.
SPEAKER_01:Nobody cares. Are we as a society more apt to being diagnosed and finding a name for something?
SPEAKER_00:Of course. This is okay, so So maybe it's self-fulfilling. Maybe we say, Oh, autism is more common. We're diagnosing your kid with autism. The kid says, Oh, I have autism, and then starts acting that way, like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
SPEAKER_01:Well, uh it just I think we have a tendency as a culture to diagnose everything. To diagnose everything. That's true. Everything. And if you're a doctor, if you're a physician, yeah, and somebody comes to you and says, We are not comfortable until something is diagnosed and there's a name for it. Yeah. I mean, that is right. It so I'm gonna tell you a story here really quickly. So this is actually interesting timing because there was a story on the Notre Dame running back, Jeremiah. I don't know if you've seen that. Uh-uh. Uh, it just came out, and his parents, when he was younger, said that Jeremiah was different. Okay. Like he wasn't reactive to happy or sad or pain or whatever. You see a little bit on the on the spectrum. And that's what they found out that hey, like he kind of goes by the beat of his own drum. Yeah. And he's very particular about certain things. Yeah. They sought a diagnosis. Okay. And after meeting with the doctor, they decided, you know what? Let's just let it be. He just is who he is. Yeah. And sports is that outlet for him. I see. Okay. And so that was the right way. You've met him, right? Yeah, I mean, he's I mean, I'm not I'm not making it. I don't know him at personally. I've met him a couple times. He seems great. Okay. I don't know him personally to know does he still is he still particular things. Tendencies and what he does and whatever. I don't know. But is sports an outlet? Is that a way for him to kind of like, you know, break those chains and break those. Yeah. You know, that's what, you know, the story was. Yeah. And that's a, you know, I give him a lot of credit for coming out and saying, like, hey, but you have somebody who didn't seek parents who didn't seek. Didn't want the diagnosis, right? And is that what we did when probably I mean, I don't know. You're you're the physician. I'm just sitting here from the point of view of like, okay, you know, what what has caused the numbers to spike?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think everybody wants it tylenol. Yeah. No, I mean, I you know what I'm saying? Like if you gun to my head, do I think Tylenol is what's the main cause of autism? Absolutely not. I think that's ridiculous. Is it what we're putting in our body? Is it yeah? I mean, I would say the poison in our food and and in our water and in our everything, you know, is probably more likely than Tylenol. But but I do agree that everybody wants a diagnosis and a treatment, right? We're we're the we're the supersize me, Big Mac, happy meal. I want my food right now, society. So you come in and you say, I've got this problem. Well, okay. I mean, I can't tell you how many times primary care physicians give antibiotics when they shouldn't, just because somebody walks in and they're like, Well, I have I have an upper respiratory infection, I want an antibiotic. Well, it's 95% chance it's viral and an antibiotic's not going to do anything anyway. But they give it to you because they want a diagnosis and they want a treatment. It's the same way with like the the um the diagnosis du jour of each decade, right? So you've got like fibromyalgia was huge. Now it's there's a number of other things that are out there. But Gen X, we don't go to the doctor, so well, we do. I mean, I don't go to the doctor very much, but I don't know. I mean I go I go once a year, but I also see a functional medicine doc.
SPEAKER_01:So I health, wellness, and but I think everything we've talked about this on the podcast before. Everything in moderation. Yep. You know, I've taken Tylenol. I I don't know. Heather has probably taken Tylenol. Yeah. You know, listen, like it is But are we gonna exceed the dosage every day? Take it every day.
SPEAKER_00:No, yeah, and and the recommendation was not don't take Tylenol. The recommendation was talk to your doctor and use the lowest dose possible, the least amount of time as possible. Has it been politicized? 100%. You got the word right there. Politicized.
SPEAKER_01:Well, it was the politicization. Politicization. We can't say it.
SPEAKER_00:We're going to get it right at some point. Anybody, yeah, anybody who can say that word correctly can come on the podcast. I'm sure they're going to give us crap for it in the comments. No, I I mean I yeah, I would agree there's a diagnosis component to it, but I do think anecdotally, looking around, there are more kids who at least are sure treated as if they have autism and are, you know, I walk around and I see a lot of kids who have those big earphones on, right? Which you never saw when we were kids. I'm not saying that's right or wrong. I'm just saying anecdotally, there's a lot more of that now than there was 25, 30, 40 years ago. So well, and that's it's not just that. It's many things.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, of course, many diagnoses, many.
SPEAKER_00:But that's a very clear one that you can see. Like the wearing the earphones thing is a very clear one you can see, and you can walk around and count. You know, I saw seven of them or whatever, whatever the number is today. That's six or seven more than I would have seen 30 years ago.
SPEAKER_01:So well, uh it's it's gonna be interesting to see what happens here in the next few months as they work this out. Do they take legal action? Do they not? Do they change some of the branding on the label, right? That's also what they were talking about.
SPEAKER_00:If they have internal documents that clearly show, and there's some stuff going around online, I don't know if it's true or not. If they have internal documents that clearly show that they knew there was a correlative or causative effect between taking Tylenol, acetaminophin, while you're pregnant, and autism, then yes, there should be a suit. If they either didn't study it or had no reason to think there was any correlation or causation there, no, you can't sue them for that. I mean, why there was no malintent there. And Tylenol's been around for acetominophin's been around for a really long time. So I mean, it's not like this is a brand new drug that the there was some again, I don't just I don't think there's any conspiracy here. And please, please, anybody who wants to like make a statement, please don't take a whole bottle of Tylenol because you're gonna die. I mean, you're literally gonna die from taking that Tylenol.
SPEAKER_01:You're not my doctor, but I will take that sound advice.
SPEAKER_00:Yes. I think that is generally good advice. And as we say, I am a doctor, but I'm not your doctor, so talk to your own medical professional. But I will take that advice.
SPEAKER_01:This has been going under anesthesia, answered with Dr. Brian Schmutz, brought to you by the Butterfly Network. I'm by Heat Sader Zot. Probably never Tylenol. I don't think Tylenol is ever gonna ever gonna sponsor us now. Nope. Never will, probably. We're brought to you by the Butterfly Network. We'll see you in the next one.
