Acetaminophen - ASD/ADHD
The Acetaminophen - ASD/ADHD litigation was centralized before Judge Denise L. Cote in the Southern District of New York in October 2022, consolidating claims that prenatal use of acetaminophen (the active ingredient in Tylenol and generic equivalents) is associated with an increased risk of autism spectrum disorder or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder in children exposed in utero. This is a general-causation-driven mass tort in its purest form: the entire claim population depends on whether epidemiological and scientific evidence can establish the alleged association to the standard required in federal court.
With 58 of 722 total filed actions still pending, the docket has experienced substantial attrition from its original filing population. A reduction of this scale in a pharmaceutical products-liability MDL centered on a contested general-causation theory is typically associated with a significant ruling on the admissibility or sufficiency of the scientific evidence underlying that theory — the kind of dispositive development that can determine, for the bulk of a filed population at once, whether claims may proceed. The pending-action count does not itself specify the mechanism, but the scale of the decline is a meaningful structural signal on its own.
For the claims that remain, resolution risk is now concentrated in how each surviving action is positioned relative to whatever standard determined the broader attrition — a fundamentally different question than the general-causation fight that shaped the docket's earlier, larger-population phase. Criterica Intelligence's platform tracks this kind of sharp attrition signal across every active MDL, because a large decline in pending actions is one of the clearest available indicators that a docket has passed through a major causation or admissibility gate, even without predicting how any individual remaining claim will be decided. A companion capital brief on this docket is available through Criterica Capital.
That prenatal exposure to acetaminophen is associated with an increased risk of autism spectrum disorder or ADHD in children — a general-causation theory that the entire claim population depends on.
A reduction of this magnitude in a pharmaceutical MDL centered on contested general causation typically reflects a significant ruling on the admissibility or sufficiency of the underlying scientific evidence, affecting the bulk of the filed population at once.
The pending-action count itself doesn't specify the mechanism; what it reliably signals is that a major causation or admissibility gate has been passed in this proceeding, which is the structural fact tracked here.
How each surviving action is positioned relative to whatever standard drove the broader attrition — a different, more individualized question than the general-causation fight that shaped the docket's earlier phase.
Statistics shown reflect historical or illustrative model outputs derived from real case data. They are not predictions or guarantees of any individual outcome. Litigation results depend on facts, jurisdiction, judge, and counsel, and vary case by case. Model accuracy is subject to selection effects and changing legal dynamics.