Donald Trump continues to claim that paracetamol taken in pregnancy causes autism, ADHD and is linked to impaired intelligence. He most recently made this claim last Monday (January 2026) yet it has been a key element of his administration’s health policy during his first year in office. And his claim is now supported by US health officials who maintain that “many experts” have expressed concern over paracetamol’s use in pregnancy.
In a speech in September 2025, President Trump said his administration was linking paracetamol to autism and urging pregnant women to avoid the medicine. In 2025 a review led by Dr Andrew Baccarelli, dean of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, found that using paracetamol during pregnancy may increase children’s autism and ADHD risk, and urged caution over “especially heavy or prolonged use”.
In April 2025, Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr pledged to find the cause of a steep rise in reported autism cases and would do this in six months with paracetamol and vaccines in his sights. This RFK Jr commitment was the reason for the Oval Office Presidential speech in September.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) then issued a letter to clinicians urging them to be cautious about the use of paracetamol in pregnancy, while also saying it was still the only drug approved for treating fevers during pregnancy. FDA went on to say that “a causal relationship” between the drug and neurological conditions “has not been established”. Hardly a ringing endorsement of the President’s position.
The US advice is largely at odds with the UK who at that time stressed that paracetamol remains the safest painkiller available to pregnant women. But the American claims led to confusion among women and concern among healthcare professionals and prompted new research that was published in the Lancet.
The Lancet article looked at 43 of the best designed and robust studies into paracetamol use during pregnancy, involving hundreds of thousands of women, particularly comparing pregnancies where the mother had taken the drug to pregnancies where she hadn’t. In this way they could dismiss other factors such as different genes and family environments, that might have an impact.
The research also looked at studies with a low risk of bias and those that followed children for more than five years to check for any link between paracetamol taking and adverse outcomes.
The Lancet Review found no association. There is no evidence that paracetamol increases the risk of autism and this reinforced the guidance from major medical organisations in the UK, US and Europe on the drug’s safety.
In a major Swedish Study into a paracetamol/autism link, it was noted that confounding factors were not easily removed from smaller studies, and in some poorly designed studies that were not properly controlled for confounding factors, links were identified, fuelling the current controversy. The Swedish Study provided data on some 2.5 million children born in Sweden between 1995 and 2019 and it failed to identify any link between paracetamol and autism
Health advice warns that women can run the risk of harming their baby if they don’t take paracetamol to bring down a high temperature or relieve pain when pregnant. This can increase the risk of miscarriage, premature birth or developmental problems in babies.
It is widely believed that autism is the result of a complex mix of factors, including genetic and environmental. But Bobby Kennedy had decided in April 2025 that he was going to get a simple answer to cause of, and the rise in, autism cases and paracetamol was in his sights along with childhood vaccines.
Back in April 2025 the UK Autistic Society (UK AS) challenged Donald Trump and Health Secretary RFK Jr about these claims viewing them as belittling and unhelpful. Attempting to simplify the condition as “caused” by an environmental agent and that it was a condition that can be “cured” by medical intervention was in their view very unhelpful indeed.
UK AS pointed out that autism is not a disease or epidemic but a life-long neurodivergence and a potential disability to some. It influences how people experience and interact with the world so it is incorrect to talk about “cures” or “elimination”. They suggested politely that the President should use his power to focus on improving the lives of people who live with autism. Less politely they called his claims dangerous, irresponsible and anti-science. They suggested President Trump is “peddling the worst myths of recent decades” and that “Such dangerous pseudo-science is putting pregnant women and children at risk and devaluing autistic people.”
Dr Andrew Wakefield gained considerable notoriety in 1998 when he claimed in a research paper published in the Lancet that the MMR vaccine causes autism. His paper was later retracted when the data was found to be fraudulent but the damage was done to public confidence in the MMR vaccine and in spite of being struck off the UK medial register, Wakefield moved to the US where he found a gullible fan base and had a great influence on the current US Health Secretary, Robert Kennedy Jr.
Autism diagnoses have increased sharply between 2000 and 2020 in the US and across the First World. This rise is due mainly to increased awareness of the condition and an expanding definition of the disorder making it much easier to get a diagnosis. Possible risk factors being looked into; include parental exposure to pesticides or air pollutions, premature birth or low birth weight, maternal health problems and parents conceiving at older ages. But Kennedy, in his research drive, and with the full support of his President, is going after the simple things to address what he sees as an epidemic with a solution.
In the chaos that is current US geo-politics this story will go unnoticed but it exemplifies what this President does, taking a complex and controversial problem and applying simple answers which he then, in the absence of any evidence, claims he has solved. Reassuring for his supporters who see life in binary positions; black and white and right and wrong when off course there is seldom such thing as right or wrong there is only opinion. There are opinions based on hard facts and objective truth and there are opinions of men, it always seems to be men, who hold firmly to shaky orthodoxies, bang their fists and demand we accept that what they say is true.
I am a pharmacist in Belfast.
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