WSJ What’s News - What Scientists Say About Autism and Tylenol Use

Episode Date: September 23, 2025

A.M. Edition for Sept. 23. Tylenol-maker Kenvue is bracing for a wave of lawsuits, after President Trump issued a scientifically dubious warning that acetaminophen causes autism. WSJ health reporter Brianna Abbott says Trump’s statement defies guidance offered by some of the scientific advisers that surround him. Plus, the Supreme Court says it will reconsider whether the president can fire top officials. And, how the new Pope is looking to turn around a manpower crisis in the Catholic church. Caitlin McCabe hosts. Sign up for the WSJ’s free What’s News newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This message comes from Viking, committed to exploring the world in comfort. Journey through the heart of Europe on an elegant Viking longship with thoughtful service, destination-focused dining, and cultural enrichment on board and on shore. And every Viking voyage is all-inclusive with no children and no casinos. Discover more at viking.com. Tylenolmaker Kenview is bracing for a wave of lawsuits after president. President Trump issues a scientifically dubious warning that acetaminopin causes autism. Plus, the Supreme Court says it will reconsider whether the president can fire top officials.

And the Catholic Church has a manpower problem. The idea of committing to something for life, like the priesthood, feels like an overwhelming choice in a society where actually we have so many options. It's Tuesday, September 23rd. I'm Caitlin McCabe for the Wall Street Journal, and here's the AM edition of What's News. The top headlines and business stories moving your world today. Tylenol maker Kenvue is bracing for an explosion of lawsuits following President Trump's warning yesterday that the common painkiller is a potential cause of autism. Acetaminophen, which is basically commonly known as Tylenol during pregnancy,

can be associated with a very increased. risk of autism. So taking Tylenol is not good. I'll say it. It's not good. The announcement made with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other health leaders by his side followed months of attention by the administration on autism, a condition that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says affects about one in 31 children in the U.S. Scientists and medical groups quickly warned that Trump's declaration was unfounded and even potentially dangerous, given the downsides of untreated fever and pain in pregnant women. Brianna Abbott is a health reporter for the journal and says that by issuing the warning,

Trump threw the full weight of his office behind a theory that has yet to be proven, defying careful guidance offered by some of the scientific advisors that surround him. Studies that are looking at a potential link between autism and acetaminopin or Tylenol have been inconclusive. There have been some that have shown that. that women who take Tylenol during pregnancy have an increased risk of autism in their children, but there are others that don't show that connection. Brianna says one complicating factor on the matter is that untreated pain and fever in expectant mothers are also risk factors for autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders.

Women who take Tylenol are taking it because they have an infection or fever or chronic pain, and that might actually be the increase in autism risk in not the Tylenol. So the results are definitely inconclusive. warning presents a significant issue for Tylenol maker Kenview, which up until now has been successful in fending off litigation on the matter. It says Tylenol is safe and that the science shows there is no clear link between the medication and autism. We now go to Big News out of Washington, where the Supreme Court has said it would formally reconsider a nearly century-old precedent known as Humphrey's executor that limits presidential.

power to remove heads of independent agencies. Yesterday, the justices said they would hear arguments in December over whether laws protecting some officials from arbitrary removal infringe on presidential power. The court also granted President Trump's emergency request to remove the Federal Trade Commission's sole remaining Democratic commissioner, Rebecca Kelly Slaughter. The news follows a series of prior decisions and emergency orders, through which the court has signaled that its conservative majority is ready to overrule the press. precedent and give Trump authority over a raft of agencies that Congress has sought to insulate from political interference. This includes the National Labor Relations Board, the Consumer

Product Safety Commission, and the Securities and Exchange Commission, along with the FTC. Meanwhile, we're exclusively reporting that the team of federal economists and researchers responsible for producing the government survey measuring hunger in America were put on indefinite paid leave yesterday. It comes just two days after the Trump administration abruptly canceled the annual Agriculture Department hunger report. The Food Insecurity Survey is used by policymakers to make funding decisions for food assistant programs and to evaluate how well those programs work. A subsequent statement by the Agriculture Department called the annual report, quote,

liberal fodder used to justify expanding federal food assistance programs. Officials in the Dominican Republic have recovered hundreds of cocaine packages from a speedboat that was destroyed by the U.S. military as part of its drug trafficking crackdown on Venezuela. Officials said 377 packages of cocaine wrapped in tape or recently recovered bobbing in the water. They added that the speedboat was en route to the Dominican Republic and those on board planned to use the country as a bridge before smuggling the drugs to the U.S. The Trump administration has made cracking down on Latin American drug cartels a key focus of its administration, with the military striking three boats that it believes were carrying narcotics

that were en route to the U.S. so far this month. The Dominican Republic hailed the mission to recover the packages as the first joint operation with the U.S. against, quote, narco-terrorism in the Caribbean. And President Trump will be making his first ever speech at the U.N. General Assembly in New York today. Journal reporter Robbie Gramer says Trump is expected to tout the importance of national sovereignty and criticize the U.N. for being ineffective.

Underlining America's declining influence in the group of nations, it helped to form more than eight decades ago. The U.S. has slashed its contribution to the U.N. budget. It's positioned itself against long-time allies at the Security Council, and Trump left his key ambassador post here, the U.S. ambassador of the U.N. empty for nearly nine months. In fact, his ambassador, Mike Walts, was just confirmed a few days before his visit. The U.S. has sided with Russia on recent U.N. votes over the war in Ukraine, which is a move that many key U.S. allies in Europe criticized, though administration officials say it was to keep the door open for peace talks. with the Russian President Vladimir Putin. While Trump may leave more than a few members of the Assembly disgruntled, he's set to meet at least one fan on the sidelines.

Longtime MAGA supporter and president of Argentina, Javier Malay. The Trump administration is looking at options to provide a financial backstop to the country as it struggles to overhaul its economy. In a post on X, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that could include swap lines and purchases of dollar-denominated government debt, adding that fiscal discipline and pro-growth reforms are necessary. to breaking Argentina's long history of decline. Coming up, we take a look at invidia's booming coffers,

plus a look at why fewer men are becoming priests and what that means for the Catholic Church. Those stories and more after the break. Viking committed to exploring the world in comfort. Journey through the heart of Europe on an elegant Viking longship with thoughtful service, cultural enrichment, and all-inclusive fairs. cover more at viking.com.

After yesterday's announcement that NVIDIA is investing $100 billion into open AI, you'd think the chip giant might have drawn down its coffers. But the journal has been looking at how much money NVIDIA is actually making on its AI chips. And it turns out, the numbers exceed the cash flow of every other tech giant. InVidia has done an amazing job,

getting people who operate data centers around the world to buy its chips in order to help train AI. Those chips are very expensive, and that's generating eye-popping amounts of cash flow. InVIDIA was generating a little over $6 billion in annual free cash flow just three years ago. But in the last four quarters, it generated $72 billion in free cash flow. So that acceleration in demand for its chips to train and to operate AI systems has really given it a geyser of money. is a journal tech reporter. He told us that NVIDIA is putting its cash to good use by largely propping up America's AI infrastructure. A lot of the companies that are buying these chips are

startups, right? And they're not actually making any money. So what is NVIDIA doing? Well, they're buying stakes in these companies. Corweave is a major provider of basically graphics, processing units of GPUs to AI companies. Invidia plowed money into Corweave in order to basically give Corweave money to then go buy Nvidia's chips. But that circular economy also has some investors worried. The question is, is this actual demand? Are we actually talking about businesses that are going to be using AI services that require AI software that must be built on and then operated with AI chips, meaning that it's actual

demand for Nvidia's product? Or is Nvidia using the cash it has from chips it's already sold to help basically fund AI companies buying more of those chips? And if that's the case, then eventually there could be a collapse. The real wildcard here is how much and how useful will these AI services be in the future for individuals and for businesses? For the time being, people are betting that it's going to be pretty useful. And that seems like a pretty good bet. And while newly appointed Pope Leo has been enjoying a religious resurgence in the global population of Catholics,

the head of the Catholic Church is facing a bit of a problem. A sharp decline in the number of young men who want to become priests is creating a clergy crisis with seminaries closing and some parishes left without a priest. Our Rome correspondent Margarita Stancati says while the aging population of priests are dying, there just aren't enough men to fill their positions. I think it's partly because young people these days have a lot of choice And the idea of committing to something for life, like the priesthood, feels like an overwhelming choice in a society where actually we have so many options.

Part of the reason is because, yeah, young people are distracted by many things. And the priesthood really is a commitment for life. Part of that commitment is the commitment to celibacy. And as society has become more secular, that commitment has also become harder to take. The new pontiff, also known as Robert Prevost, has appealed to those considering the priesthood to not give up. This summer, he hosted Catholic social media influencers at the Vatican and participated in a Catholic youth festival in Rome. Earlier this month, the church also recognized its first millennial saint, the tech-savid teenager, St. Carlo Acutis. And that's it for What's News for this Tuesday morning.

Today's show is produced by Kate Boulevent and Freddie Folston. Our supervising producer is Sandra Kilhoff. I'm Caitlin McCabe for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back tonight with the new show. Until then, thanks for listening.