Plaintiffs trying to bring back more than 500 Tylenol autism lawsuits are heading into a U.S. appeals court, and they’ve pulled President Donald Trump’s public comments into the fight.
In September, Trump and senior health officials linked autism to Tylenol use during pregnancy, a moment the families now argue should influence the court’s view of their sidelined expert testimony.
It’s an unusual move, maybe even risky, but the stakes explain the tactic.
A lower court tossed the lawsuits in 2024 after blasting the plaintiffs’ experts for shaky methods. Researchers say there’s no solid evidence that acetaminophen triggers autism, and Kenvue — which now owns the Tylenol brand — keeps repeating the same line: the science shows the drug is safe.
Their spokesperson said the trial judge got the expert ruling right.
The plaintiffs’ lawyers didn’t comment, but they’ve argued the judge mishandled the expert review and overlooked analyses they believe should have cleared the bar.
Now they’re asking the 2nd Circuit to reopen everything. Whether the panel buys that argument is anyone’s guess.
There’s also the giant takeover looming in the background. Kimberly-Clark has already agreed to pay more than $40 bn for Kenvue, the former J&J unit.
Merger paperwork filed with the SEC says that anything tied to autism or ADHD allegations won’t give Kimberly-Clark a reason to walk. In other words, even a revived lawsuit wave won’t blow up the deal on its own.
Meanwhile, Kenvue is fending off a separate case from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who claims the company hid risks tied to Tylenol use in pregnancy.
A Texas judge denied Paxton’s attempt to block a scheduled $398mn shareholder dividend and also refused to force Kenvue into temporary marketing changes.
Judge Denise Cote, who oversees the consolidated federal litigation in Manhattan, wrote in December 2023 that the plaintiffs’ experts glossed over complexity and didn’t deal with gaps in the data.
That ruling gutted the families’ chances, so they appealed in April 2024. After Trump’s press conference, they sent a letter to the court urging it to consider his comments, hoping it nudges the panel toward a different read of the evidence.
According to our analysts, the appeals court now has to navigate politics, science, and an aggressive mass-tort strategy all at once. If the judges revive the cases, the litigation machine restarts overnight.
If they don’t, the ruling will reinforce how high the evidentiary bar sits for claims built on contested medical theories. Either way, this one won’t fade quietly.
