The Needle: Park Police Pursuits End in Crashes, Tylenol Researcher Deemed ‘Unreliable’ By Judge, And White House Calls for Mass Firings With Government Shutdown

• Bare witness: Dr. Andrea Baccarelli, now the dean of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, consulted with Trump administration officials ahead of this week’s dubious advice on taking Tylenol during pregnancy. Baccarelli was previously paid $150,000 to serve as an expert witness for plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Tylenol, which was dismissed for lack of reliable scientific evidence. In dismissing the case, Judge Denise Cote agreed with attorneys for Tylenol that Baccarelli’s testimony “cherry-picked and misrepresented study results,” and he was therefore “unreliable.” The Trump administration relied heavily on Baccarelli’s findings to support its baseless advice that pregnant women should not take acetaminophen, the active drug in Tylenol. Minus one point for cherry picking. -1