US Warns Against Tylenol Use, Citing Unproven Link to Autism

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1:46Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts. Radio. News. You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at 10 a.m. Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts or watch us live on YouTube. That Tylenol situation. I don't know, Scarlett, I've said this before on air. Tylenol my entire life has been the magic drug that fixes everything for me. I know. I have a mother who suffers from migraines, and she would reach for the Tylenol all the time. So what President Trump is saying is certainly eye-popping, I think, for a lot of people.

2:26Yeah, exactly. It's moving the stock, as Charlie was just reporting. We want to get the latest from Bloomberg Intelligence. And Hunter Van Kirk joins us. She covers the healthcare stuff for Bloomberg Intelligence. And what's the science behind all of this? Is there science behind all of this? Or is this just President Trump and Mr. Secretary Kennedy kind of going off the range a little bit? That's a loaded question. There are a lot of studies on it. It's certainly driven by an increase in finding a solution for the increased rates of ADHD and autism. I think it's really important here to qualify or quantify what we're talking about with frequent Tylenol use.

3:06And most of the studies are looking at measured as more than 28 days over the course of your pregnancy. So that is a lot of Tylenol use. We're not talking about you have a high fever and you take it for a day or two. This is kind of more long-term use. There is a correlation between Tylenol use and these disorders in children. And I'll probably lose listeners if I go too deeply, but correlation is not causation. Those are two separate things. And while there's a lot of literature out there, a lot of clinical studies, I would argue that the best ones look at sibling analysis. So they compare a mother who had frequent use during one pregnancy and not the next.

3:49And that's the best way to kind of look at this. And in those studies, there was no findings of increased risks. And there have been several. There was a two and a half million children study in Sweden, as well as a more recent one out of Japan. Unfortunately, randomized trials are difficult to do. There's just too many variables. But the sibling analysis is probably the best we have. So, Anne, when I think about the companies that are affected, certainly Kenview, which owns the Tylenol brand, is directly affected. And we saw the stock plunge yesterday. It's recovered a bit today, up about 3.2 percent.

4:24But Tylenol's generic name is acetaminophen. And there are many other companies that make acetaminophen as well. Are we seeing them impacted in any way? You know, this is even for Kenview, this is maybe a high single digit portion of sales, and that's Tylenol overall. So you assume that the pregnant population is a much smaller percentage of those sales. And I'd argue even, you know, before all of this, a lot of physicians, certainly mine, when I was pregnant, recommended only taking Tylenol when you have one of those, you know, high fevers. So I wouldn't expect it to truly be a material impact to any of these companies.

5:02Is there anything else out there that is at risk here? I mean, from just the FDA, I mean, your coverage here, because I know there's a lot of uncertainty about which drugs are, you know, kind of favored by this administration, which ones aren't. Is that, are you seeing that in your coverage of your companies? Well, for pregnancy in particular, I'd say there are, there are no favorite drugs. You know, you certainly were never, uh, uh, suggested to take aspirin and Tylenol was one of the few things that, that was considered okay. Um, But overall, you know, anytime you get a lot of media attention on on any drug from from politics or anything else, it's typically not a great thing for the companies.

5:39But I think it does tend to even out as it passes. You are our senior equity analyst for biopharmaceuticals. When the secretary of health, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks, does he tend to move companies in your universe? I would argue yes, for better or for worse. I'd say they definitely move, but I would say that they go back to a steady state. Stay with us. More from Bloomberg Intelligence coming up after this. I don't love the word retirement because I think it has negative baggage. I like the word financial independence. If you were to be financial independent, like how would you spend your time?

6:14And that's exactly what a lot of my clients talk about. And the term they'll use is a work optional lifestyle. I agree. Like the next gen millennials and below are not thinking about retirement. We're thinking about let's find something that we enjoy, that we can have financial independence. I think that's a better way to think about the end of life stage versus quote unquote retirement.

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7:54You become what you spend on, and that's not what you're building toward. Brex is the intelligent finance platform that eliminates that work before it starts. AI agents that handle the manual stuff automatically, so your team can spend their time on what actually compounds. It's time to get Brex AF. Learn more at brex.com slash AF. You're listening to the Bloomberg Intelligence Podcast. Catch us live weekdays at 10 a.m. Eastern on Apple CarPlay and Android Auto with the Bloomberg Business App. Listen on demand wherever you get your podcasts or watch us live on YouTube. The social media thing. I think it's a thing.

8:34It's a big, right? And you know what's one of the big pieces of this whole social media? It's the whole TikTok thing. That's a thing. Well, you know, President Trump has changed his mind on this. He wasn't a fan before. Now he is. I don't know where we're going on this. I mean, this is something that active Congress says, hey, you got to sell it or. Or you got to shut down. Shut down. I don't know what's going on. See, Michelle, she joined it. She knows what's going on. She's a vice president of insights for Censor Tower. Joining us live here in our Bloomberg Interactive Brokers studio. TikTok, huge platform.

9:03You guys track everything on the data, the advertising, the in-app spend. You know, you guys know what's going on there. Talk to us about TikTok. And if I'm going to buy this thing, what am I buying, actually? What you're really buying is the, as we said,$1.6 billion in in-app revenue that they earned just this year so far. I think since launch, they've earned about$6 billion in in-app revenue. So for those who aren't clear, it's when you're on the app and you make a purchase within it that goes through the app store and that is an in-app revenue purchase. So that's one part of it. It's probably the most lucrative.

9:36It is the most lucrative market for TikTok for in-app revenue. The other thing is the value of its advertising, right? right? TikTok users in the US spend 80 minutes per day on the app. And this is followed by 53 minutes per day at Instagram. So it's very valuable of highly engaged users. So it's a strong place. It's an attractive market or place to put your ads. I'm a parent. And what you just said is I'm filled with fear now. What I didn't hear you say, though, in terms of what you're buying is the algorithm, because TikTok apparently serves up content better than any of the other social media networks, right?

10:09Instagram will serve you up a lot of things that you're not interested in, but TikTok seems to know and zero in on what gets your attention. So a US buyer of US TikTok doesn't get that, does it? My understanding is that the ByteDance would license that algorithm, you know, technology to the US owners. And then there's been talk, maybe you'd have to have a separate app and that has gone away. But the question would be like, will you still get that same content, even if the algorithm is adjusted even slightly? And then what would the value of TikTok actually be? And I think the other thing, it's probably one of the more young or youthful oriented platforms.

10:47So if the buyers that come in are, you know, kind of shifted towards more like a Facebook or change the algorithm, it may be less attractive to these younger users and therefore as an advertising platform. What are the advertisers are saying i mean they've got a vested interest in this thing because they you know a lot of money they spent a lot of money on this platform yes from year to date this year versus last year eight of the 10 top advertisers on tiktok have increased their spend like uber comcast so they are spending there's been more fluctuations in uber just because i think people were unsure about what was going to happen to the app if it was going to be removed but as of yet it makes up about five percent of social media ad revenue in the u.s who comes second i mean if if this thing is not handled well, or if this takes longer than expected and people start migrating to other platforms, who stands to benefit the most?

11:37I would say Instagram with its reels. Time spent on Instagram as an app has gone up 14 % year over year versus just 1 % for TikTok. And the thing is, people are spending about 46 % of their time within Instagram on reels, and that's up from 34 % last year. So there's a huge amount of time spent on reels, which is another short form video So media, and it's similar to YouTube Shorts. And that's where I think you'd see people migrate to. Who advertises on these, of the TikToks of the world? The largest advertisers in shopping, in pretty much all industries, media, entertainment. You know, Amazon is a huge advertiser on all of these networks, as was Timu prior a couple of years ago.

12:23Shein, Walmart, they all are advertising. These are advertisers that used to advertise on broadcast television. Yes, yes. No more. They've all been over to digital advertisers. And it's a lot cheaper to advertise on these platforms. It's also more targeted, theoretically, right? Because they know what you buy, what you like, so they can target the ad. Absolutely. That's a little better than 18 to 49 men. I know, exactly. Homer Simpson or, you know, Homer Simpson's son. Bed rotting. Have you heard of that term? Yes, I have, unfortunately. What is that? Bed rotting. Bed rotting? It's a Gen Z term where individuals, usually teenagers, spend extended time in bed, not for sleep or illness, but for passive activities like scrolling and watching TikTok.

13:03Yes, I've unfortunately seen that in my own house. Yes, I have seen that and what they are. And I think I can see from my own sort of anecdotal experience that algorithm works. I can hear them laughing. They keep wanting. I don't find them funny. But anyway, they keep showing these videos and they can literally sit there and scroll for hours and hours and hours. And it's very meta because bed rotting became popular through TikTok. Like TikTok kind of encouraged this and like talks about it. Yes, it's like something to do. It is glamorized, I would say, by having this sort. So all that to say is if this algorithm shifts, there will be other winners, probably Instagram or meta platforms.

13:40But I don't know what it would mean to TikTok itself if there was any change in the algorithm or any change in the way the content is delivered. Right. Right. And this is a obviously this is a global business. Yes. I mean, I'm looking at I thought just most things I just I just thought the U.S. would lead in in in use, but it doesn't. Indonesia, Brazil and Mexico are larger than the U.S. The U.S. only makes up six percent of daily active users for TikTok, but 30 percent of in-app revenue. So what would happen if, you know, TikTok U.S. is siphoned off from regular TikTok? We're the only market that gets U.S.

14:16TikTok and everyone else stays on TikTok proper. If there was a separate app, I suppose that could happen. But a lot of the content that people consume is global. So if you cut that off, then I don't really know. And you can get the same global content from competitors like Instagram. I think that would be a huge risk to TikTok's engagement levels, daily active users, and then subsequently down the pipe, advertising. Because obviously the platform would be less attractive if there's fewer people on it. Do we have any sense of when we're going to get clarity on this whole thing? Supposedly December 16th, but that's sort of a rolling deadline.

14:51So you see, I think people are still unsure of what is going to happen. But the news as of late seems a little bit more solid, that there is a group of potentially, a group of people. Oracle is going to manage the server. That's been a consistent name throughout this, right? Yes, and a couple of private equity funds. But I mean, great private, Andreessen Horowitz, Silver Lake, who I think is the best private equity player in technology. And Teresa's a little bit more VC earlier. Yeah. Yeah. So the real names and. Oh, they're definitely real names, but it's just a matter of how they manage the business though, after and how that changes.

15:25It's a cultural phenomenon in some senses, right? So you have to be careful what you do with it. This is the Bloomberg intelligence podcast available on Apple, Spotify, and anywhere else you get your podcasts. Listen live each weekday, 10 a.m. to noon Eastern on Bloomberg.com, the iHeartRadio app, TuneIn, and the Bloomberg Business app. You can also watch us live every weekday on YouTube and always on the Bloomberg Terminal.

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