The Chaser Report - Tylenol Gate

Episode Date: September 25, 2025

In the words of the 47th President of the USA: "Nothing bad can happen. It can only good happen. But with Tylenol, don't take it." Naturally, Charles and Dom have some thoughts.---The Chaser Report: EXCLUSIVE NordVPN Deal ➼ https://nordvpn.com/chaserreport Try it risk-free now with a 30-day money-back guarantee 🌍 Buy the Wankernomics book: https://wankernomics.com/bookListen AD FREE: https://thechaserreport.supercast.com/ Follow us on Instagram: @chaserwarSpam Dom's socials: @dom_knightSend Charles voicemails: @charlesfirthEmail us: [e-mail] CEO’s Super-yacht upgrade Fund: https://chaser.com.au/support/ Send complaints to: [e-mail] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gadigal Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is The Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to The Chaser Report with Dom and Charles. Charles, today my life changed. For so many years, I've just had the old headache and I've taken paracetamol for that headache, not knowing what I was doing to my unborn children. They don't even know that I want to have. I've got two kids.

That's more than enough. But just, I can't risk it. If you're not heard, there's an amazing montage, actually. On Jimmy, did you see Jimmy Kimmel's first show back? Fuck you, dog. He did an amazing smash cut. I have very loved autistic people in my direct family. And what I would say to everyone out there who thinks that it's true that you should take Tylenol to get autistic.

If that is in any way true, you should definitely take Tylenol because they're, wonderful people, and I'd like, like, fuck you for saying that there would be a bad thing to be autistic. Charles, have you put a couple of Tylenol in your glass of wine before we started recording? Yeah, look, okay, we'll get on to Tylenolgate. Not that that's a brand that ever exists in Australia. No, I didn't see Jimmy Kimmel's. Oh, so Jimmy Kimmel did this amazing smash cut of all the times Donald Trump said, don't take Tylenol, which was at least 20.

We'll play a quick clip of it here, and then we'll do some ads. We've got a little announcement as well. take Tylenol. Don't take it. With Tylenol, don't take it. Don't use Tylenol. Don't take Tylenol. Fight like hell not to take it. I think you shouldn't take it. Don't take Tylenol. That is a lot of time. It's a lot. If you were the owner of the Tylenol Corporation, you would be about as unhappy as Jimmy Kimmel was a couple of days ago, which is a point that he made on his return early this week. Is there what's going on? Have they just not paid him, you know, a kickback and he's just...

No, it's RFK Jr. Coming up with a conspiracy theory. We'll take a break. So, Charles, before we get into the Thailand situation, we do need to update people a little bit on what's happening, which is you're about to go. When people hear this, you will be just about boarding a plane, actually.

To South Korea? To South Korea? What? I'm going to South Korea for, like, with my son. Are you? For about five days. Oh, okay. And then we're going on to the UK. And then he's...

actually, he's actually, um, being a tech on the tour, some bit of work experience. Wow. Okay. A good of child labour. So, and, and you're away for how many weeks? So you're going back to the UK? I'm basically away for a month. Wow.

Okay. So, um, look, we have been, uh, furiously stockpiling episodes. So you might notice the podcast is getting a bit less topical, but we've got, unlike the last time you're away, we're going to keep it going more regularly. Yeah. We've done lots of episodes, which I actually think almost places the test reported in a better place, which is sort of. stockpile.

Yeah, but also, you know, like talking about sort of interesting, sort of thematic. There's some really nice episodes, actually, including our plan, which you'll hear about in G-Course. Yes. To create the best venue that has ever existed. We're going to do that. I think it's a genuinely good idea. Anyway, so we'll talk about this. We may occasionally record a topical episode, something particularly big happens.

Yeah, so I think that's right. I think the aim is, let's record one topical episode a week, and then also we'll do. We'll just do the weekly subscriber. So if you wonder why the news cycle is not being reflected in the podcast, that is why. As always, you can reach us at podcast at chaser.com. com with feedback or questions or just to spam Charles or report Charles for violating child labour laws, etc. But yes, we'll resume, I guess, in November. Yes, but for the next two weeks, it is school holidays.

Oh, yes, of course. Sorry. And then as we have promised this year. The next two weeks, we're not working. Yeah, which is we'll still do. the weekly subscriber episodes but everything else will turn off for a couple of weeks. We'll be back.

I think it's like the 13th of October with new episodes. So, on to the great paracetamol introversy. And the place where this begins, Charles, is with the observation that in recent years, the rates of

autism diagnosis have skyrocketed. Yes. There's a lot of reasons you could suggest for why that is. So, Dom, can I ask? Isaac Newton Yes Who famously never looked anyone in the eye And always stood behind a pillar

Yes When talking to his colleagues Did you hear that on the rest of his history recently? I did too No I didn't hear that on the rest of it I knew that already I'm a bit of an expert in autism Given that it runs deeply in my family

Yes yes yes But Are you suggesting that Sir Isaac may have In fact been autistic Well what I'm just saying is Was he ever diagnosed with autism? Not that I'm aware. So if someone like him emerged today and he was diagnosed with autism,

does that mean that autism rates would have soared by infinity percent given that nobody was diagnosed with autism back then, and then he's diagnosed with it. So there's now one person. I think you've cut to the heart of the matter, which is that it may... Just be. It may just be that, in fact, we aren't more people on the autism spectrum. Because even when we were growing up, Dom...

Oh, it wasn't a word that was news at all. When you had a daggy person at school who occasionally didn't want to look you in the eye and was socially awkward, you would either, if you're an asshole, bully them or make friends with them knowing that you shouldn't sort of be an asshole. Or in my case, at least in one, with one person, make friends of them and shamelessly and with great delight copy their Latin homework. which they did. They did it. They basically... You told him that chairs.

No. They, they, this person, God love him, would do the homework months ahead of the rest of the class. Yes. So everyone would copy his homework. He's very happy to do it. Yes. He's very good at it. We have somebody in our household who does their homework ahead of schedule.

Yeah. And to me, like that is insanity. That is the definite. That is something where I would want to ban them from society. I can't imagine. wipe them out from society. I can't imagine a possible moment where I would say, I've got a bit of spare time, might get ahead on home.

I'm going to get ahead on homework. Charles, you and I... I'm going to devote my spare hours to getting ahead on homework. But then there's the kind of person who does their homework in a sensible and organised manner at the right time. Who's that? They're not stressed. Nobody does that.

No, but there's some people who do that. I know people who do that in an organised fashion. Yeah. And then there are people who wait until well after the sensible time to start and do an all night because they're so hopeless. And that's you and me. And Charles, I don't want to put it out there. That may not also be an optimal.

No, that's rock and roll. That's rock and roll. You know, it may be that in the years to come, people like us are also diagnosed with a condition. It's probably ibuprofen. Yeah, yeah, if you have ibuprofen when you're pregnant. But this is, anyway, so this is quite a sad moment because not only has, I think it's fair to say,

you know, autism being quite stigmatized through this process. Well, it's not even stigmatized. It's like the assumption is, that having autism is bad in some way. Yes. Rather than an incredibly charismatic feature of some people where you actually end up quite jealous of a whole lot of parts of how they think and in awe of how they think.

I think that's true. I think the awe is right. I mean, I think that, like most people my age, I first became aware of autism through the somewhat problematic in retrospect portrayal in Rain Man. But the whole point is that humanity, needs people with those gifts. Look, what can we say about this? Except that there's no credible medical evidence that paracetamol causes autism. Even if autism was something that should be

avoided, which, you know, I'm not convinced that it is. But even if it was, it's a spurious link by someone, you know, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who clearly has major problems that should be probably diagnosed. Well, isn't the whole point that he had a worm through his brain? He said is so. Yes, he had a worm through his brain and his personality changed significantly after that. Yeah, and he clearly adheres to various conspiracy theories, which let's just say are unsurprising if you don't have as much of your brain as he used to. And he is the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, an incredibly important job. But I think, Dom, one of the interesting things about this, and just losing the sort of wry commentary for a while, the thing that

really interesting me is there's such anger towards the pharmaceutical companies that you can sort of understand why this sort of thing goes well in the US, right? Which is, it's not just the Tylenol, right? But, you know, like the whole opioid epidemic that destroyed millions of people's lives. And, you know, because that wasn't because there was a whole lot of illegal sale of opioids. it was that there was a pharmaceutical company that actually legally pushed onto millions of Americans addiction to painkillers.

Yes, it's been very well documented. With consulting firms advising them on how to, you know, make the most out of it. How to make the most out of getting everyone addicted. And then overlaid with that is the profit-seeking healthcare sector that just sort of essentially, like you got to, like it's, I mean, even back in 2008, when I was living in America back then, 2006, 2007, it was extraordinary how, like, profit-seeking that these companies are.

They're just sort of, like, there's no sense that health care is about anything other than making money. No. And, you know, like, people who were on really good health insurance plans would have a deductible or an excess, I think it was called, of $10,000. So you don't get any benefit from having... Imagine subscribing to, I don't know, HCF or NIB or Medi Bank or whatever and you don't see any money back from them until you've spent $10,000 yourself on health insurance.

That's how it works in the US. Of course there's anger. And so when somebody says, oh, wait a minute, let's boycott Tylenol. And there's a conspiracy that Tylenol is being fed to pregnant women to cause autism because pharmaceutical companies are evil. You know, there's a certain

segment of population that are so angry and so blinded by their anger that they go, okay, if that's what you say. You know what I mean? No, it's really troubling. And I think more profoundly, I think what this is, you know how Ronald Reagan

ran on this idea that we shouldn't trust the government, right? And it was the first... No, what do you say, that the scariest words in the English language were, I'm from the government and I'm here to help. Yeah.

And the whole idea was the whole neo-conservative project over the last sort of 40 years has been, let's corrode trust in government, right? Yeah. This is the apotheosis of that, which is you literally are having a government spread a conspiracy theory that isn't true. And on both sides of politics, on all those of politics,

for everyone, you shouldn't trust the government. Like, the government is saying something that is clearly both offensive and untrue. So the scariest words of the English language now are, I'm from the Trump administration and I'm here to, you know, no, sorry, let me change it, look on. I'm from the government and you need to follow the current vaccine recommendations from the US government. I mean, it's exactly.

Like, like, their recommendations now don't get vaccinated for things like hepatitis. Yeah. Because Donald Trump said, oh, well, we shouldn't immunise against hepatitis because that's sexually transmitted. So you don't need it until you're 12 years old. Now, I know that he's great friends with Jeffrey Epstein and that to him is the sort of age of, you know, like where all that stuff starts happening. But it's like, there's madness. Hepatosis is also transmitted through dodgy water. Yes.

Of which America has tons. Surprisingly much. Yeah, supposedly much. I mean, you go to any country which has sort of non-vaccinated people for hepatitis. And, you know, you worry about freshly cut fruit and things like that. I mean, yeah, you do. And it's very troubling. And maybe the Secretary of Health and Human Services could do something about, oh, no, not because it's RFK-GENI.

The Chaser Report, news you can't trust. Just by the by, if you want to say some truly shocking reading, take a little bit of a wander through RFK Junior's Wikipedia page. Some of the things in his life, I won't go to them here because they're actually just too upsetting. Like, people have to seek the mouse. But some of the things in his personal life, following a long Kennedy family tradition, by the way,

are horrendous. Yeah. So anyway, just go and check the guy out. Also, I learned from his Wikipedia, he's a master falconer. So isn't that delightful? But didn't he also kill a bear and then store it in Central Park? Well, and there was the thing where he strapped the roadkill to his car and little bits of roadkill coming in through the windows.

There's a lot of, a lot of strange stories about RFK Jr. Again, the current health secretary of the United States in charge of health policy, the guy who promised during his Senate confirmation that he wouldn't change vaccine policy that he wasn't an anti-vaxxer and so on and has just been doing exactly that. But it's so, it's just so, the whole thing is so offensive.

And I think I'm just going to have a Tylenol and hope that I get autism so that I can. I mean, the idea that paracetamol does anything to you other than just remove a very, very low level of headache. I mean, that's, the idea that's anything. It's just like, it's actually probably good marketing for Tylenolome. Yeah. Well, it does something now.

And I don't want to knock it because, look, you know, You know what it's really, you know what really worries me too? And this is a serious point for a moment here, if you don't mind, because, you know, you've got to make a serious point about your children. No, I've been totally serious. I'll make a serious point about that. Yeah, you make a serious point back. I'll make a serious damn point about my children,

which is that both of them when they were very young, had medical situations where they had extremely high and scary fevers that meant that they were in hospital. And the frontline treatment for that is paracetamol. It's actually very, very good against fever. And little babies aren't supposed to. to have much stuff. Now, admittedly, the US, you know, incorrect, dangerous advice is that pregnant women

shouldn't have paracetamol while pregnant. But you can bet that if you start demonising paracetamol, what's going to happen is that women with babies, you know, very small babies will not give them paracetamol. And what will happen is that some of them may well die as a result of fevers, which would be easily addressed with paracetamol. And having seen how scary it is, have a little kid, you know, going north of 40 degrees, Yeah, and how easily paracetamol. And admittedly, this is ibuprofen does it as well.

Those drugs treat it. It's just terrifying to think what might happen. It works a different way. No, it's a completely different mechanism, I know, but it's also very effective. No, that's why paracetamol's better because it actually... It's milder, yeah. So cherish your autistic members of your family. Give people paracinema when they need them.

And maybe, you know, RFK Jr shouldn't be the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Just maybe. But also, we've just got to, I think it's right. I think we just need to excise America from the rest of the world. I mean, but that's what's happening, right? I mean, the worry is that it's so influential on social media and that so many people in Australia or wherever else, as we saw with Charlie Kirk.

I mean, I hadn't really heard of him very much. Yeah. I knew that he was an influencer, but I didn't know much about him. But young people watch his videos a lot. and the concern is that all these MAGA, you know, misinformation sort of time bombs will actually have a real impact outside of America. And I've got one last thing to say, which was my comedic take on the whole. Oh, at last, thank goodness, because we're getting very earnest back there.

Which is that the thing, having lived with several people with autism for many years now, the one defining feature of them tends to be that they have this very annoying sense of justice, right? Oh, yes. So that's one of the key sort of things is if you've got this sense of justice where you think, but that's how it should be. And those things can apply to very small things, like, why doesn't the button work properly? They can also apply to very big things, like, why doesn't society work better?

Right. And I reckon part of the reason why they want to sort of victimise or stigmatise people with Orgyzism is because they don't like people with a sense of justice. Because people with a sense of justice don't tend to take bribes and grift on government and tell lies that are higher. Tell lies about how pharmaceuticals work. Like all those things are just not things that somebody who has a well-grounded sense of autism would ever do because there's no sense of justice there.

And I don't want to generalise about anyone. But why doesn't the world? work according to a system that's actually fair. Yes, and makes sense, you know, like, and does what it says. You know, they're the sorts of things that, you know, autistic people will sort of point out. You go, you know, why don't everyone follow the rules? Going on.

Well, you know, for many years, we've heard politicians from really everywhere, really, talking about the international rules-based order. Oh, yeah. You know what we need. Not the case anymore. We know, we need an autistic person. to run there. Because then people will actually follow the rules.

No, no, we don't want. This is your final, this is your final thought for the podcast before you take a month off, Charles. Enjoy your trip. No, no. Well, I'm looking forward to getting back and the world being a utopia because everything's been solved. Good, good. Well, in the meantime, you'll hear lots of pre-recorded episodes. You'll hear some new ones.

Yeah, I reckon we're about, the feed will continue. We're about four or five short of not recording. Like we will spatter about four or five new episodes Which is good because we want to keep up with your adventures on the ride. So very good. Okay, well, lovely. Well, you know, see you in a month. Yeah, see you.

Bye. Bye. We're part of the Aricone Class Network. Catch you later.