The Tylenol-autism controversy is not an isolated episode. It is part of a larger struggle over how health knowledge is created, shared and received. Populist figures exploit the emotional register of fear, certainty and moral clarity. Scientific and medical institutions, in contrast, often cling to the cautious register of evidence, probability and hedging. Between these two modes lies the knowledge gap: a deep fault line where public trust is won or lost.

This prologue introduces the themes that run through the next four articles. It frames the controversy not simply as false information but also as an exhibition of power: the power to define reality, to narrate risk and to decide whose pain counts. By situating the debate in the wider history of how institutions communicate and how publics respond, it prepares the ground for the detailed case studies that follow.

·       Article 1 explores the mismatch between facts and feelings in the institutional response to claims of a correlation between Tylenol and autism.

·       Article 2 examines why false information travels faster, filling the gap with emotional clarity while science leaves it open.

·       Article 3 dissects the “tough it out” line as both a populist slogan and a gendered dismissal.

·       Article 4 extends this to the long history of minimising women’s pain and medicalising – or failing to medicalise – different life stages.

These articles are not about debunking or disproving comments made by President Trump on these issues, but about how communicators have attempted to rebuff and debunk. They are a critique of communication practices. Together these pieces restate a position I took in previous articles, that the knowledge gap is not fate. It is a choice. And unless institutions learn to choose clarity, empathy and equity, they will continue to lose ground to those who exploit fear, conspiracy and certainty.

Thank you for reading,

Mark Gibson, Leeds, United Kingdom

September 2025