September 24, 2025 • 4 mins
Neil Saavedra fills in for Bill while he is out on vacation. Dr. Jim Keany, Chief Medical Officer at Dignity Health St. Mary Medical Center in Long Beach, joins The Bill Handel Show for 'Medical News'! Dr. Keany talks with Neil about Tylenol and the risk of Autism.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let's talk with doctor Jim Keeney. Oh, doctor, how are you?
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Neil?
Speaker 1 (00:05):
I'm doing good, good good here. So Thailandol has been
in the news or as the President says, is side Taiglanol.
I think he genuinely. We all have the words that
we can't say, but I think cidnam inefit is one
(00:26):
of his. And uh, we talked about this yesterday because
the studies don't seem to go along with this particular conclusion.
What say you, good, doc?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Yeah, So, I mean there are a lot of studies
that I'm out there, of varying quality, by the way,
and so you know, the one most recent and the
one that has probably the highest quality is a study
from Sweden that has two point five million children in it,
and they controlled for some variables that other studies didn't,
you know, because what they looked at were siblings. And
(01:03):
it was a what we call prospective studies. So we
followed them and uh, we followed families and saw did
the did the mother use thailand all before she was
you know, during the time she was pregnant, and that
way you have kind of a prospective look at this.
You're not it's not observational you're not looking back and saying, hey,
(01:23):
did you do you remember if you used tilan al
during pregnancy. You may or may not remember that, or
you may remember it incorrectly. So that study showed no
real relationship at all between thailanol and autism. And and
that's probably one of the best ones. There are some
other ones that show mixed reviews that some do show
(01:45):
that there may be an association mild association. Now remember
association doesn't mean cause, but it's it's caused. To look
at it and go, huh, there might be something there.
You know. For example, the rooster crows the sun comes up.
The rooster is associated with the sun coming up, but
it didn't make the sun come up.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Right, No, But did the sun coming up make the
rooster crow?
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yeah, exactly. So you've got to look at these things.
You just don't know which way it goes. And for example,
did the fever that the mother took the tilnol for
caused the problem or was it the time and all? So,
you know, it's hard to conduct real world studies that
don't control for everything. The sweetest study did a really
good job. The other one did a decent job, but
(02:29):
the best study and the biggest by far, because the
other studies of show association have a thousand kids or
less in them, and it's had two point five million.
So you know, again, living life has risk and is dangerous.
So we're not saying that tailanol has zero risk when
you're pregnant for sure. There's no doctor on the planet
(02:50):
that will say that, or if they did, they'd be wrong.
So you know, we know that there's risk in life
and we're weighing the risk. So if you're pregnant and
you have a fever, we know if there's good studies
that fever during pregnancy increase the risk to the feet
for a lot of different things, including eral tube defects
and other neurologic issues. So do we treat it? Do
(03:10):
we not treat it? There are no studies that show
whether treating a fever in pregnancy with thilanol is protective,
but you assume that lowering the fever would help. We
don't know that for sure, though, but are your best judgment?
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Are there other medications that would do that that are
not a cineminifin.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Well and they also have risk, right, So thilan al
motread all of those and those are not recommended, you know,
during pregnancy to be used for fever. Right now, the
safest drugs used is thilan All is recommended by the
American College of obgy Ns. It's recommended by pediatrics, it's
it's recommended by every major society because uh, you know,
(03:50):
and and again, trying to do a study where we
look and see, hey, maybe we leave the pregnant woman
with a fever untreated, we would have a really hard
time getting that path Human Subjects Protection Committee which SURE
or an IRB, because every human study has to pass
that level of ethics, and leaving a pregnant mother untreated
(04:11):
with a fever right now probably would be considered too
unethical to you know, to randomize someone and forced them
not to treat their fever.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Yeah, do no harm, right, Okay, But are these doctors
that's that went to twelve to eighteen years of schooling,
Are these real doctors that sit on the toilet and
scan through the internet.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
How much doctors are we doctors?
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Okay, I'm just talking. I'm just saying because there's a difference, right,
There's a lot of people that are sitting on the
toilet reading the internet that are doctors now in their heads,
so I just wanted to make sure
Let's talk with doctor Jim Keeney. Oh, doctor, how are you?
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Neil?
Speaker 1 (00:05):
I'm doing good, good good here. So Thailandol has been
in the news or as the President says, is side Taiglanol.
I think he genuinely. We all have the words that
we can't say, but I think cidnam inefit is one
(00:26):
of his. And uh, we talked about this yesterday because
the studies don't seem to go along with this particular conclusion.
What say you, good, doc?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Yeah, So, I mean there are a lot of studies
that I'm out there, of varying quality, by the way,
and so you know, the one most recent and the
one that has probably the highest quality is a study
from Sweden that has two point five million children in it,
and they controlled for some variables that other studies didn't,
you know, because what they looked at were siblings. And
(01:03):
it was a what we call prospective studies. So we
followed them and uh, we followed families and saw did
the did the mother use thailand all before she was
you know, during the time she was pregnant, and that
way you have kind of a prospective look at this.
You're not it's not observational you're not looking back and saying, hey,
(01:23):
did you do you remember if you used tilan al
during pregnancy. You may or may not remember that, or
you may remember it incorrectly. So that study showed no
real relationship at all between thailanol and autism. And and
that's probably one of the best ones. There are some
other ones that show mixed reviews that some do show
(01:45):
that there may be an association mild association. Now remember
association doesn't mean cause, but it's it's caused. To look
at it and go, huh, there might be something there.
You know. For example, the rooster crows the sun comes up.
The rooster is associated with the sun coming up, but
it didn't make the sun come up.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Right, No, But did the sun coming up make the
rooster crow?
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Yeah, exactly. So you've got to look at these things.
You just don't know which way it goes. And for example,
did the fever that the mother took the tilnol for
caused the problem or was it the time and all? So,
you know, it's hard to conduct real world studies that
don't control for everything. The sweetest study did a really
good job. The other one did a decent job, but
(02:29):
the best study and the biggest by far, because the
other studies of show association have a thousand kids or
less in them, and it's had two point five million.
So you know, again, living life has risk and is dangerous.
So we're not saying that tailanol has zero risk when
you're pregnant for sure. There's no doctor on the planet
(02:50):
that will say that, or if they did, they'd be wrong.
So you know, we know that there's risk in life
and we're weighing the risk. So if you're pregnant and
you have a fever, we know if there's good studies
that fever during pregnancy increase the risk to the feet
for a lot of different things, including eral tube defects
and other neurologic issues. So do we treat it? Do
(03:10):
we not treat it? There are no studies that show
whether treating a fever in pregnancy with thilanol is protective,
but you assume that lowering the fever would help. We
don't know that for sure, though, but are your best judgment?
Speaker 1 (03:24):
Are there other medications that would do that that are
not a cineminifin.
Speaker 2 (03:30):
Well and they also have risk, right, So thilan al
motread all of those and those are not recommended, you know,
during pregnancy to be used for fever. Right now, the
safest drugs used is thilan All is recommended by the
American College of obgy Ns. It's recommended by pediatrics, it's
it's recommended by every major society because uh, you know,
(03:50):
and and again, trying to do a study where we
look and see, hey, maybe we leave the pregnant woman
with a fever untreated, we would have a really hard
time getting that path Human Subjects Protection Committee which SURE
or an IRB, because every human study has to pass
that level of ethics, and leaving a pregnant mother untreated
(04:11):
with a fever right now probably would be considered too
unethical to you know, to randomize someone and forced them
not to treat their fever.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Yeah, do no harm, right, Okay, But are these doctors
that's that went to twelve to eighteen years of schooling,
Are these real doctors that sit on the toilet and
scan through the internet.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
How much doctors are we doctors?
Speaker 1 (04:35):
Okay, I'm just talking. I'm just saying because there's a difference, right,
There's a lot of people that are sitting on the
toilet reading the internet that are doctors now in their heads,
so I just wanted to make sure
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