SAN DIEGO —— Misinformation linking acetaminophen use during pregnancy to autism in children rose on TikTok after an announcement from the Food and Drug Administration, according to research presented during the American Academy of Pediatrics 2026 National Conference & Exhibition Oct. 2-6, 2026, at the San Diego Convention Center.
The FDA announced a label change for acetaminophen products such as Tylenol on September 22, 2025, prompting a wave of confusion and concern that brought users to the internet in search of accurate information. On TikTok, however, they were more likely to encounter misinformation from influencers without medical expertise.
The abstract, titled, "Acetaminophen Use During Pregnancy and Autism on TikTok: Disproportionate Exposure to Misinformation in a Content Analysis," analyzed 53 TikTok videos posted immediately after the announcement between September 2025 and November 2025, and found that about 53% contained evidence-consistent information, while about 28% contained outright misinformation.
"Despite being a smaller portion of the overall available subject content, the misinformation videos accounted for over half of the total views of all the content we examined," Shivani Srivastava, Medical Student at Rutgers School of Medicine said.
"Our results indicate that TikTok's algorithm amplified low-quality, conspiracy-framed videos containing misinformation on a very sensitive health topic and allowed for misinformation videos to spread far wider than evidence-based videos that explained the lack of causal evidence between prenatal acetaminophen exposure and autism."
A single misinformation video reached 10.3 million views, representing a third (36.6%) of all exposure across content analyzed. Additionally, nearly 3/4 of the videos containing misinformation were created by influencers as opposed to medical professionals.
Researchers state that as more people turn to social media, and especially TikTok, for medical advice, it becomes increasingly important for pediatricians to proactively address misinformation with patients and their families.
"After seeing pregnant patients in our own clinics question whether it was safe to take Tylenol during pregnancy, we wanted to understand what information they were being exposed to online," Srivastava said. "Our findings reveal how important it is for medical institutions to be part of the conversations on social media by sharing accurate, engaging content that reaches patients where they are."
