July 7, 2026
We are glad to be back and hope everyone had a great Fourth of July! On to tonight’s stories: the biggest study yet clears Tylenol in pregnancy, Planned Parenthood’s ban lapses, Illinois rewards menopause training, and more.
— Meghan McCarthy
p.s. Trivia is back and it’s got an animal spirit (scroll to see) 🐾
THE LARGEST STUDY YET FINDS NO TYLENOL-AUTISM LINK
A sibling-matched analysis of more than 700,000 Hong Kong mother-child pairs found no association between acetaminophen use in pregnancy and autism, ADHD, or intellectual disability, at any trimester, dose, or frequency. Published in JAMA Internal Medicine by teams at the University of Hong Kong and Aston University, the study compared siblings to strip out the genetic and household factors that muddied earlier research. The results line up with large Swedish and Japanese datasets, and cut directly against the Trump administration's September claim tying Tylenol to autism.
THE PLANNED PARENTHOOD BAN QUIETLY EXPIRED
The one-year ban Republicans wrote into last summer's budget bill lapsed July 4, meaning Planned Parenthood can once again bill Medicaid again for contraception, cancer screenings, and STI care (but not abortions). The damage is already done, with roughly 30 clinics closing during the freeze, nearly all in contraceptive deserts and two-thirds in rural or medically underserved communities. Medicaid visits to the network fell 25%, per The Hill. Anti-abortion leaders are already pressing Congress to re-defund the group in a third reconciliation package.
ILLINOIS BECOMES THE FIRST STATE TO REWARD MENOPAUSE TRAINING
Starting January 1, any licensed Illinois clinician can count perimenopause and menopause coursework toward the implicit-bias training the state already requires for license renewal, under a bill the legislature passed unanimously in late May. It's the first state to build that incentive, and the gap it targets is stark: fewer than 200 Illinois physicians are certified menopause specialists, and roughly 70% of women who seek menopause care nationally never get treated. Ten states and DC now have menopause laws on the books, with some 60 more bills introduced this year.
AT HOME, DIY TRANSVAGINAL ULTRASOUND
Guided only by a remote sonographer on the phone, 263 women performed their own transvaginal ultrasounds at home, and the images met diagnostic standards 96% of the time, matching in-clinic rates. Blinded physicians trying to tell home scans from clinic scans guessed right just 56% of the time. Participants strongly preferred the at-home version to lying in an exam room, an appealing prospect for the many women who find the exam invasive or live nowhere near an OB/GYN. The JAMA Network Open trial was funded by the device's maker, Turtle Health.
YOUR OVARIES MAY NOT RETIRE AFTER MENOPAUSE AFTER ALL
Biologists have long assumed that once the eggs run out, ovaries shrivel into inert tissue. A mouse study suggests something else: aged ovaries fill up with immune cells and switch on inflammation genes, as if the organ is reinventing itself into an immune outpost once it's done reproducing. If this is true in human women too, it could help explain why autoimmune conditions like rheumatoid arthritis climb after menopause, and it reframes an organ medicine has mostly ignored post-fertility. Big caveats: this is early work in mice, and the Northwestern team is clear it doesn't yet mean anything for human health.