Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is suing Johnson and Johnson, accusing the pharmaceutical company of failing to warn consumers about the risk of taking Tylenol while pregnant.
Paxton claims Johnson & Johnson and Kenvue are deceptively marketing Tylenol to pregnant mothers despite knowing that early exposure to acetaminophen, Tylenol’s only active ingredient, leads to a significantly increased risk of autism and other disorders.
This lawsuit, the first of its kind from a state government, comes a month after President Donald Trump and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. announced updated guidance discouraging pregnant women from taking acetaminophen, citing it as a possible cause of autism.
“Big Pharma betrayed America by profiting off of pain and pushing pills regardless of the risks. These corporations lied for decades, knowingly endangering millions to line their pockets,” said Paxton. “Additionally, seeing that the day of reckoning was coming, Johnson & Johnson attempted to escape responsibility by illegally offloading their liability onto a different company. By holding Big Pharma accountable for poisoning our people, we will help Make America Healthy Again.”
For decades, Johnson & Johnson willfully ignored and attempted to silence the science that prenatal and early-childhood exposure to their acetaminophen products can cause Autism and Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (“ADHD”) in children, Paxton said in a press release.
“Despite being well aware of this fact, Tylenol was marketed as a completely safe pain medication for pregnant women, violating Texas’s consumer protection laws. The considerable body of evidence demonstrating these dangers was recently highlighted by the Trump Administration,” Paxton said.
The science around Tylenol and autism is uncertain. While some studies suggest a correlation between taking Tylenol while pregnant and having a child with autism, others have repudiated those findings, according to The Texas Tribune.
“Further, Johnson & Johnson violated the Texas Uniform Fraudulent Transfer Act by fraudulently transferring liabilities arising from Tylenol to a separate company, Kenvue, in order to shield their assets against lawsuits arising from the harmful impact Tylenol had on children,” Paxton said.
Paxton said that he has relentlessly fought against “Big Pharma’s destruction of America’s health and safety,” suing Pfizer over the COVID-19 vaccine and taking action against Eli Lilly for “bribing providers to prescribe its medications.” Previously, Paxton secured a $700 million settlement with Johnson & Johnson for making “misleading and deceptive claims about its baby powder products that contained talc.”
To read the lawsuit, click here.
