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Script:
Today we’re looking at line of evidence number 14 out of 20 telling us that acetaminophen causes autism in susceptible babies and children.
This is William Parker, the scientist, with Dr. Parker Reports.
Did you know that psychologists can actually measure your empathy and social awareness?
Published research from 3 different labs, spanning almost an entire decade and over half a dozen published reports, show that acetaminophen use in adults temporarily blunts empathy, social trust, social awareness, emotional responses to external stimuli, the ability to identify errors, and normal responses to social injustice.
Many of these studies were done by psychologists and neuroscientists testing normal responses to everyday stimuli. These studies were performed by psychologists and neuroscientists testing adult brain responses to things that we encounter every day, with some individuals given acetaminophen and some given placebo.
This research shows that acetaminophen, also known as Tylenol, affects regions of the brain involved in empathy and social awareness.
Now, most adults who take this drug are probably completely unaware that these changes are happening in their brains.
Line of evidence 14 is all about this research.
It’s important because alterations in empathy and especially decreased social awareness are hallmarks of autism spectrum disorder.
These are the same functions that are affected in adults who took acetaminophen.
In other words, we now know acetaminophen affects the same processes that are adversely affected in people with autism. This is line of evidence number 14 of 20.
You can read more about this and other lines of evidence linked in our profile.
Click follow to hear the next 6 lines of evidence.
To watch a more detailed video on this topic: please watch our similarly titled video on this WPLab Youtube channel.
To get more information and to see how this fits into the big picture, read the peer-reviewed research.
The following references describe the original published research mentioned in this blog: