KVUE $16.78
Ok, funny story on this one. I saw Johnson and Johnson on a list of stocks, and when I was growing up in East Brunswick NJ, there were two big companies that were close to us. One was Squibb and the other was J and J. I even did some photographic work for J and J when I was still in High School.
Anyway, I wanted to buy companies that I knew so this was someone that I knew. I was thinking that it was winter at the time and we would be moving into spring and summer when people will be needing things like Band-Aids, which was a product of J and J.
After I had bought them, I found out that they had sold off the band-aid and other items (like Tylenol) to a company called Kenvue.
Still believing in all those products, a few days later, I bought Kenvue. I kept the Johnson and Johnson but just added the Kenvue stock.
I think it’s a great company, though in this presidential administration, they made some totally unsubstantiated claims that Tylenol causes autism, so the stock suddenly went south. I don’t believe that the public will continue to trust the gut feeling of RFK Jr. instead of science, and the company will continue to do well.
My belief is that RFK jr had said he would know what caused autism by a certain date, and when that date came here, he had nothing. So he thought that most likely the mothers of kids born with autism had probably taken Tylenol at some point in the pregnancy. Of course, every woman had taken Tylenol during pregnancy.
It was just something to say. He based it on asking mothers of autistic kid if they took Tylenol and they said yes. He has no idea of how it could possibly do it (medically). And he didn’t take into account that lots of mothers who did NOT have autistic kids also took Tylenol.
Anyway, I still believe that Kenvue did nothing wrong and their products do not cause autism. But there is a rumor now that Kenvue is going to be purchased or merged with Kimberly-Clark in the second half of 2026. We will see.
