On Sept. 22, officials did not say that vaccines are a cause of autism, but they didn’t rule out making such an announcement in the future.
Like many parents of children with autism, Greer McGuinness listened with interest when Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other officials announced on Sept. 22 that acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, may be associated with the disorder.
The New York resident is a registered dietitian and autism expert whose 11-year-old son Keegan was diagnosed with the condition at 19 months old. To better help her son, she went back to college and earned a master’s degree in health sciences with a concentration in epidemiology research.
McGuinness, who founded Biomedical Healing for Kids, is hoping researchers will conduct a study focused on children who receive a vaccine and then are given Tylenol.
“Have we looked at how that could affect their body, immune system, and brain? I’m not aware of any study like that, but it would be helpful,” she told The Epoch Times.
Research shows that Tylenol can deplete or interfere with glutathione, a crucial antioxidant in the body that helps neutralize toxins, protect cells from damage, and maintain healthy brain and immune function. For a developing baby, the systems that produce glutathione are still immature, which makes them more vulnerable to anything that stresses or lowers glutathione levels, McGuiness noted.
Autism is a disorder with symptoms such as difficulty communicating and maintaining eye contact. About a quarter of people with Autism Spectrum Disorder cannot speak or are “minimally verbal,” according to a 2018 review of autism data.
Autism rates have spiked in the United States in recent decades.
The prevalence was one in 31 children in 2022, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in the spring. That was up from one in 150 children in 2002.
Kennedy said in April that genetics may be behind some cases, but with such a jump, “you need an environmental toxin.”
Kennedy has also suggested that vaccines can cause autism.
“Many of the parents have reported that their kid, that their child developed autism immediately after the vaccine—so that’s something that we’re looking at right now,” he said earlier this year.
