I want to tell you WHY certain babies get autism when exposed to acetaminophen. As a biochemist with almost 40 years of experience working with a team having comparable experience in toxicology and pharmacology, the answer is apparent, and I want everyone to know it.
And, as it turns out, it’s not hard to explain.
A picture is worth a thousand words. Here’s the picture, published in the scientific literature here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37321575/ But don’t worry, the important parts are trivial to understand. I’ll explain.
This picture is published in the scientific literature and looks complicated, but we can ignore the complicated terms that most people can’t relate to. Really, who cares about the difference between glucuronidation and sulfation? We really don’t need to understand that to see why acetaminophen is a problem for some babies and children.
The bottom line is that this diagram shows how a human body “deals with” or processes acetaminophen. The green arrows indicate pathways that are safe and non-toxic. The red arrows show pathways that lead to damage and death. Death of brain cells, in particular.
Let's simplify the language and look at the important parts of this diagram together.
So, what’s going on here? One of the green arrows (the one on the far left) doesn’t work well in babies in general. That’s the same one that doesn’t work well in domestic cats, as all veterinarians know. That’s why cats cannot be given acetaminophen. The other two green arrows (the ones on the bottom and the right) are impaired in children with autism.
If all of the green paths are blocked, then the red path is the one taken. The drug has got to go somewhere. That’s WHY acetaminophen causes autism in some babies and children, but not in most babies and children.
Does this diagram prove that acetaminophen causes autism in susceptible children? No way. It only shows that acetaminophen is dangerous for children with autism. It’s the other 23 lines of evidence, combined with this one, that tell use with zero reasonable doubt that acetaminophen exposure in susceptible babies and children causes many if not most cases of autism.
So, when I say I know WHY acetaminophen causes autism, I can refer to the chart above. If a child has those safe pathways indicated by the green arrows working, they won’t get autism after exposure to acetaminophen. Babies and children get autism because their body simply can’t deal with acetaminophen. The drug goes down the red pathway. That’s WHY.
But nobody can say exactly HOW acetaminophen causes autism. The chart above tells us a part of the answer, but nobody knows the entire answer. Acetaminophen does a lot of things to the brain. Acetaminophen blocks the synthesis of a certain building block of nerve cells called prostaglandin E2, it affects the same pathways affected by marijuana (no kidding), and it somehow inhibits social awareness. Nobody knows if any or all of those things are involved and how they all tie together when acetaminophen causes autism.
A great idea would be to stop inducing autism using acetaminophen. Then we would be less concerned about the details, and could move on to studying something useful.
Nobody seriously studies the biochemistry of scurvy anymore. We solve the problem by giving people vitamin C. By the same token, if we stop inducing autism with acetaminophen, then we don’t need to worry so much about how exactly acetaminophen induces autism in the developing brain. At least we know why. That should be enough to put a stop to it.