Meryl Horn

It was all set to go.

So yeah, this is Brian Lee, professor of epidemiology at Drexel University.

Hello.

How are you?

I bet.

Yeah, he's getting kind of swarmed, and I wanted him to help me understand, like, where this idea came from in the first place, this idea that acetaminophen could affect a fetus.

Like, if we were going to build the case against acetaminophen, according to science, where would the story start?

And apparently, these concerns have been floating around for a while.

Huh.

Okay.

Suggesting that there might be some risks here, which was, it was surprising to me because I have been pregnant and doctors will always tell you that Tylenol and other stuff with acetaminophen in it is the safe one to take regularly.

You're not supposed to take ibuprofen because that's thought to mess up blood flow to the fetus and has been linked to congenital birth defects.

Acetaminophen is thought to be like the safer of the two.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, there had been these kind of like trickling out of like concerns, like Brian said, that it might be messing with sex hormones, kind of acting as an endocrine disruptor.

Yeah.

No, at first I was like, what?

But apparently back 15 years ago, some researchers pointed out that some painkillers sort of look like a type of endocrine disruptor that I'm sure you've heard of, phthalates.

Exactly.

Yeah.