Top Professor Ousted as His Research on Tylenol Became a Headache for His University and Big Pharma; Tylenol-Autism/Pregnancy Lawsuit Happening Now

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This Epoch Times article which ran in January was a huge eye opener, not only to the dangers of Tylenol itself, but to the immense power of the pharmaceutical companies to shut down awareness and blind the public with regards to problems involving their products.

This article shows the connections between Johnson and Johnson, the company manufacturing Tylenol, and Duke University, which let a top professor go after his research posed a threat to the Tylenol maker’s profits.

Two board members of Johnson and Johnson are high-level administrators at Duke.

I included much of the Epoch Times article, and the link to the original is below it.

Afterwards, please see the news about massive lawsuits ongoing against the Tylenol manufacturer, in which the plaintiffs claim damages for autism they believe their children developed because of Tylenol they took while pregnant. Numerous studies support their claims.

Top Professor Ousted as His Research on Tylenol Became Too Much of a Headache for His University and Big Pharma

Immunologist and biochemist William Parker is a well-spoken, well-published academic who’s famous for being on time with every deadline. He was part of the research team that discovered the function of the appendix as a harbor for beneficial bacteria.

Despite his outstanding record as both an instructor and a scientist, Parker—who’s only 57 years old—was forced to retire from his long-standing position. He was a professor and scientific researcher at Duke University’s medical school for almost 28 years.

An email trail from the Duke Department of Surgery administration obtained by The Epoch Times indicated, however, that Parker was forced to leave.

In January 2021, he was informed that the administration wouldn’t be renewing his contract after almost three decades of service to the institution.

‘Not in Their Strategic Best Interest’

With the threat of losing his funding looming over him, Parker found an anonymous donor willing to support his salary and the costs of his experiments. This private donor was willing to support his laboratory work for at least a year and possibly indefinitely.

However, when Parker let the administration know that he had secured funding to keep his lab open and continue some crucial experiments, he was told that Duke was unwilling to accept the money.

“Evidently, donations can be received to support research initiatives that are strategically aligned with the institution, and can be used at the discretion of the beneficiary,” Kent J. Weinhold, chief of the Division of Surgical Sciences, who’s a professor of immunology and pathology, wrote in an email to Parker dated April 5, 2021.

“They cannot be tied directly to a salary line or specific experiments, as such would be regarded [as] a grant, not a gift. So a donor can donate to your laboratory, but cannot donate money specifically for your salary.

“The real issue here is perhaps more direct. To receive a donation for you, it would require that the Department strategically wants to keep your lab open. Unfortunately, the Department feels that [it] is not in their strategic best interest to keep your lab open. With this being the case, receipt of a donation would not be possible.”

Parker told The Epoch Times that shutting down his lab under these circumstances was unheard of in his experience.

An Impressive Scientific Legacy

Parker has published almost 200 papers, replete with discoveries on par with other scientists at prestigious institutions: In addition to discovering the function of the human appendix (a safe house for beneficial bacteria), he was one of the pioneers in evaluating the immune systems of wild animals.

More recently, Parker has researched the beneficial effects of intestinal worms. Living symbiotically with worms—like living symbiotically with beneficial bacteria—may help the human immune system.

Parker’s research has strongly indicated that intestinal worms have a beneficial effect on depression and anxiety. He was also among the first to publicly—and correctly—predict that intestinal worms would help protect people from the most severe cases of COVID-19.

Ousted for Controversial Research?

So, given that Parker is such a well-published academic conducting cutting-edge research, why did Duke decide that it was “not in their strategic best interest” to keep his laboratory open?

No one at Duke gave him a clear answer to that question, Parker said. But he also had been noticing a lack of institutional support since 2017.

That year, he and a team of scientists, including a well-known brain researcher in the Department of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, published a review article in the Journal of International Medical Research. The review explored the scientific literature that linked acetaminophen—the main ingredient in Tylenol—to oxidative stress, inflammation, and autism.

In the past, the university supported his research. But in this case, although Parker had the needed research funding in his account at Duke, the administration refused to pay the journal’s publication fee.

A Home Equity Loan to Pay Academic Publication Fees

That had never happened before. Perplexed but undeterred, Parker and his wife, Susanne Meza-Keuthen (who works as a counselor in the local public schools), used a home equity loan to pay the fee themselves.

After the paper was published, Parker was no longer given the teaching assignments that helped support his salary. “I saw a 90 percent reduction in the number of trainees I was assigned to mentor,” he said.

“The justification for my position was based on research funding, teaching, and training,” he said. “So taking some of that away meant that they could then argue that my existence at the university wasn’t ‘justified.’”

Then, in 2020, Duke refused to allow Parker to use his research funds to study the connection between acetaminophen and autism. This decision was only rescinded after lawyers working for donors—who provided the funding specifically for that study—complained that the research wasn’t moving forward.

The next year, the administrative assistant who had been assigned to his lab to help with highly bureaucratic administrative tasks, Beth Weatherspoon, told him she was being reassigned and that someone new would be assigned to help. But that reassignment never happened. So by then, Parker no longer had the administrative support he needed for tasks such as ordering laboratory supplies. His position was terminated the same year.

Ousted for Challenging the Pharma-Funded Status Quo?

Dr. Allan Kirk, who oversees the Department of Surgery at Duke University, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

However, Sarah Avery, director of Duke’s Health News Office, told The Epoch Times via email: “The information we could provide on a former faculty member is limited to the dates of their employment with Duke.” She then confirmed that Parker was employed by the university from Aug. 1, 1993, to June 30, 2021.

However, Parker says it’s likely that he was ousted from his position because his research challenges the pharma-funded scientific status quo.

When scientific inquiry exposes corporate malfeasance and misinformation, universities often seek to shut it down.

In fact, Parker joins a growing number of cutting-edge academic researchers and editors who have lost their positions.

This list includes the co-founder of the Cochrane Collaboration and founder of the Nordic Cochrane Center, Dr. Peter Gotzsche, who was ousted for pointing out flaws in research that found the HPV vaccine to be safe, and the now-former editor-in-chief of Food and Chemical Toxicology, Dr. José Luis Domingo, who was forced to resign to maintain his academic independence after he published an important scientific paper showing that the COVID-19 vaccines interfere with crucial immune system signaling.

It also includes one of the world’s foremost experts on aluminum toxicity, Dr. Christopher Exley, whose work on the toxicity of aluminum calls the safety of aluminum-containing vaccines into question.

All of these scientists were shunned for pursuing scientific research that challenged the status quo.

Tylenol Toxic for Tots

One of the most important research projects he has conducted, Parker said, uncovered toxic effects of acetaminophen, particularly on infants and children.

Parker claims, among other things, that the scientific evidence overwhelmingly indicates that early exposure to acetaminophen causes autism.

In 2021, the global market for acetaminophen was valued at $9.44 billion, according to one report.

Despite the research that shows that it’s toxic to the brain and the immune system, physicians continue to recommend giving kids Tylenol.

Ties to Industry

Two members of the leadership team at Johnson & Johnson, the company that makes Tylenol, are high-level administrators at Duke.

Dr. Mark McClellan is the director of the Duke-Robert J. Margolis Center for Health Policy. Dr. A. Eugene Washington is Duke’s chancellor for health affairs.

They’ve served on the board of directors for Johnson & Johnson since 2013 and 2012, respectively.

Johnson & Johnson didn’t respond to our request for comment.

Academic Pressure to Abandon Controversial Subjects

Parker said that there’s widespread pressure to ignore or suppress the connection between acetaminophen and autism.

A few days before we spoke to him, a not-for-profit publicity firm backed out of a contract with him and promised to return the almost $10,000 he had paid them to conduct public outreach describing his published work.

“I’ve seen professors back quickly away from this project despite compelling data, and I’ve seen journal editors reject our papers with no valid reason,” Parker said.

He recalled one anonymous reviewer who referred to his work as “bizarre” and another who stated emphatically that acetaminophen is safe when used as directed, despite formal proof that the drug was never shown to be safe and ample evidence that it isn’t safe.

If Acetaminophen Causes Autism, a Possible Fix

It isn’t surprising that some people want to sweep under the rug any evidence suggesting that acetaminophen exposure causes neurodevelopmental disorders.

The stakes are high: Scientists working in the field of autism could lose their credibility and even their jobs, and pediatricians could be blamed for causing autism since they’re the ones who recommend that parents dose their children with Tylenol. But Parker believes there may be a simple solution.

“Although acetaminophen has never been shown to save lives and is certainly over-used, it is possible that it could be made safe by adding an antidote for the drug’s toxicity,” he said.

One such antidote, acetylcysteine, is tolerated well by the body. A powerful antioxidant, acetylcysteine is a drug currently used to treat acetaminophen overdose and prevent the resultant liver damage. It’s known more popularly as “N-acetyl cysteine,” often abbreviated to “NAC” when sold as a dietary supplement.

People began buying large amounts of NAC in 2020 as a potential treatment or preventive for the symptoms of COVID-19. NAC has been shown to interfere with virus replication and suppress expression of pro-inflammatory cytokines in cells infected with influenza viruses or respiratory syncytial virus. Overproduction of those pro-inflammatory cytokines, known as a cytokine storm, is a primary culprit in many COVID-19 deaths.

However, the FDA responded to this attempt by citizens to protect their own health by issuing warning letters to supplement suppliers and trying to shut down over-the-counter sales of NAC, resulting in many supplement websites temporarily pulling it from their virtual shelves.

Meanwhile, a 2021 study predicted that autism could cost the United States $589 billion per year by 2030. A lot of those dollars go to pharmaceutical companies with a known predilection for hiring federal employees when they tire of civil service salaries.

As for Parker, he said that his team is moving forward despite the hurdles they’ve faced in the academic world.

“I’m doing more work on the cause of autism with my nonprofit than I ever could have done at Duke,” he said.

That nonprofit, WPLaboratory.org, has already published two peer-reviewed papers within the last year, is currently running several experiments to learn about the toxic effects of acetaminophen in early development, and has started a wide-reaching publicity campaign to get the word out about the dangers of acetaminophen.

Source:

https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/top-professor-ousted-as-his-research-on-tylenol-became-too-much-of-a-headache-for-his-university-and-big-pharma_5008217.html

Here is information about the lawsuits alleging that some of the offspring of women who used Tylenol in pregnancy are suffering with autism as a result:

Tylenol Autism Lawsuit (April 2023 Update)

April 24, 2023 | Attorney, Matthew Dolman

The Tylenol autism lawsuit is attracting national attention. In this article, we will discuss lawsuits relating to the use of acetaminophen while pregnant, commonly known as Tylenol lawsuits, potential settlements relating to these lawsuits, and the science supporting the link between Tylenol and autism, ADHD, and other neurodevelopmental disorders. The Tylenol lawsuit has the potential to be the biggest mass tort in U.S. history.

The makers of Tylenol and generic acetaminophen (also known by its chemical name, Paracetamol) are facing numerous product liability lawsuits. These legal actions allege the makers and retailers negligently failed to warn pregnant women, doctors, and the public about the potential risk involved with using their products during pregnancy.

The use of paracetamol during pregnancy has previously been connected to a 20% to 30% increase in concerns such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD), ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), hyperactivity, and other conduct disorders. The link between Tylenol and autism has been studied the most, creating strong arguments that the size of the studies, the consistent methodology, and the studies' designs (described as "robust") have provided solid evidence that paracetamol use during pregnancy leads to an increased risk of neurodevelopmental disorder diagnosis.

Acetaminophen and Autism

In 2021, 91 American and European scientists became alarmed about data showing a consistent association between acetaminophen use by pregnant women and autism or ADHD diagnoses in their children. This group of scientists signed a consensus statement urging pregnant women to minimize their use of acetaminophen during pregnancy.

We will discuss this consensus statement and scientific evidence linking Tylenol to autism and ADHD later in this page. However, the science is becoming clear that regular use of Tylenol (or generic acetaminophen) during pregnancy poses a significant risk to the developing fetus.

The Tylenol Autism Lawsuit

The proposed link between Tylenol use during pregnancy and children born with ASD or other conditions has grown into a nationwide concern. As a result, numerous lawsuits have been filed claiming damages related to the various manufacturers’  and merchants’ failures to warn about the potential problems this over-the-counter medicine can cause.

In October 2022 alone, Tylenol lawyers spent $1.85 million in mass tort advertising to notify potential claimants about their legal rights. This was the third biggest expenditure for any mass tort after mesothelioma and Camp Lejeune injury claims. Families affected by Tylenol-related issues are filing mass tort lawsuits throughout the United States. 

Rather than clogging multiple federal court systems, an ever-growing number of lawsuits have been consolidated in the Southern District of New York before Judge Denise Cote. These consolidated lawsuits are officially known as In Re: Acetaminophen – ASD/ADHD MDL No. 3043 Products Liability Litigation and are informally referred to as the “Tylenol autism lawsuit.”

The Tylenol autism lawsuit encompasses all lawsuits filed in Federal Courts throughout the United States against both manufacturers and retailers of generic acetaminophen products and Tylenol. This form of litigation is called Multi-District Litigation (MDL) because it includes potentially injured parties throughout the country.

April 17, 2023 - Proposed Warning Label Suggested

The judge who is responsible for the Tylenol Autism Multidistrict Litigation requested proposed warning language that could be placed on bottles of acetaminophen. The plaintiffs' attorneys suggested the following:

"Autism/ADHD: Some studies show that frequent use of this product during pregnancy may increase your child’s risk of autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. If you use this product during pregnancy to treat your pain and/or fever, use the lowest effective dose for the shortest possible time and at the lowest possible frequency."

Does Tylenol Cause Autism?

We do NOT believe Tylenol is the primary cause of autism.

Rather, we strongly believe that the use of acetaminophen during pregnancy—specifically in-utero exposure to acetaminophen—greatly increases the probability of a child being subsequently diagnosed with autism or ADHD. 

Autism, ADHD, and other neurodevelopmental disorders predate acetaminophen. However, we subscribe to the growing body of science that demonstrates a causal link between in-utero exposure to acetaminophen and a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder in the child that was exposed.

Environmental factors lead to a greater incidence rate, and numerous studies indicate not only an association between the use of acetaminophen and the incidence of autism; but a dose-dependent relationship. In other words, the greater the level of acetaminophen, the higher the incidence rate and severity of autism and ADHD.

Tylenol has long been marketed as a safe over-the-counter drug for pregnant women to utilize as a pain reliever. Recent studies analyzing umbilical cord blood samples illustrated a dose-dependent relationship between acetaminophen and autism. Study after study shows a consistent association between acetaminophen and autism. A vast number of studies all conclude that using Tylenol while pregnant leads to elevated risks of autism and negative neurodevelopmental outcomes for the developing fetus.

Johns Hopkins University Boston Birth Cohort Study (2020)

Based on emerging research on acetaminophen conducted by both Yale University and Johns Hopkins University, this study found a link between mothers who took Tylenol during their pregnancies and the diagnosis of neurodevelopmental conditions, including autism, in their children. There now exist multiple studies (see this analysis of multiple studies on acetaminophen use during pregnancy) illustrating a potential causal link between higher rates of autism and acetaminophen use during pregnancy. 

To see more studies linking acetaminophen use during pregnancy with autism and ADHD in children, and for further information, see this link:

https://www.dolmanlaw.com/blog/settlements-for-tylenol-autism-lawsuits/