{"id":38286,"date":"2025-09-23T09:46:06","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T09:46:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/38286\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T09:46:06","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T09:46:06","slug":"trump-attacks-paracetamol-as-officials-unveil-highly-contentious-conclusions-on-autism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/38286\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump attacks paracetamol as officials unveil highly contentious conclusions on autism"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Trump administration<\/a> unveiled highly contentious conclusions about the causes of autism, together with a push for research purporting to find a possible \u201ccure\u201d for the condition on Monday.<\/p>\n

After months of widely trumpeted investigations spearheaded by US health secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr, Donald Trump announced that pregnant women should limit their use of acetaminophen, usually branded as Tylenol in the US or paracetamol elsewhere, which he claimed heightens the risk of autism in children when it is used by pregnant women, an assertion hotly contested by scientists internationally and contradicted by studies.<\/p>\n

Speaking from the White House, flanked by Mr Kennedy, the president said he had \u201cwaited for 20 years for this meeting\u201d and added: \u201cIt\u2019s not that everything\u2019s 100% understood or known, but I think we\u2019ve made a lot of strides.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he declared: \u201cTaking Tylenol is not good \u2026 All pregnant women should talk to their doctors about limiting the use of this medication while pregnant.\u201d Later, he reinforced the comment, saying: \u201cDon\u2019t take Tylenol. There\u2019s no downside.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He also spoke about upcoming recommendations that vaccines such as the measles, mumps, rubella and varicella (MMRV) shots should be given in a delayed manner or in smaller doses, despite limited evidence of the impacts. And he spoke about the hepatitis B shot, currently given to newborns as part of national vaccine standards, and possible recommendations to delay the first dose \u2014 again with limited evidence.<\/p>\n

Mr Kennedy followed, announcing that the health department and US Food and Drug Administration would work to change the label on acetaminophen risks.<\/p>\n

Administration officials also unveiled a plan to further investigate how a possible treatment for autism might exists in the shape of leucovorin, a drug currently used for patients with cancer and anemia.<\/p>\n

Mr Trump, who has frequently voiced his concern over autism, said, along with Mr Kennedy, that the US is suffering from an \u201cepidemic\u201d, and had flagged the major initiative on Sunday at Charlie Kirk<\/a>\u2019s memorial in Arizona.<\/p>\n

\u201cTomorrow we\u2019re going to have one of the biggest announcement[s] \u2026 medically, I think, in the history of our country,\u201d he said. \u201cI think you\u2019re going to find it to be amazing. I think we found an answer to autism.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

One in 31 children aged eight had a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) \u2014 a condition denoting communication and social difficulties, along with repetitive behaviours \u2014 in the US in 2022, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That compares to about one in 150 in 2000.<\/p>\n

Mr Kennedy, who previously peddled the theory that the condition is caused by vaccinations, has attributed the rise to \u201cenvironmental toxins\u201d.<\/p>\n

He told Monday\u2019s event that the National Institutes of Health had been guilty of focusing \u201calmost solely on political safe and entirely fruitless research\u201d about autism\u2019s causes. He said was committed to investigating the \u201cideology of the autism outbreak\u201d.<\/p>\n

He called autism \u201ca complex condition with a multi-factual ideology\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne area we are currently examining is vaccines,\u201d said Mr Kennedy, who has frequently floated theories that the increase in the condition\u2019s prevalence is fueled by vaccinations.<\/p>\n

Comments denounced as ‘fearmongering’<\/p>\n

However, specialists say the increase is mainly due to increased screening, combined with evolving definitions of the disorder. They have also said the causes are predominantly dictated by genetics.<\/p>\n

Scientists in the US and UK reacted to the Tylenol link sceptically, with British physicians denouncing it as \u201cfearmongering\u201d that risked stigmatising parents of children with autism.<\/p>\n

Alison Singer, president and founder of the Autism Science Foundation, voiced scathing criticism of the administration\u2019s approach \u2014 specifically its assertions on Tylenol, which she called \u201cnot scientifically based\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny association between Tylenol and autism is based on very limited, conflicting and inconsistent science, and it\u2019s premature to make this kind of unsubstantiated claim and risk undermining public health,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s misleading to families who deserve clear more factually based information.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

She also questioned the basis of the White House announcement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re uncertain as to why this press conference is being held today. To our knowledge, there was no new data that were uncovered, no new studies published, no new presentations were made. There wasn\u2019t a scientific conference or a medical conference,\u201d Ms Singer said.<\/p>\n

Speaking on a call organised by Defend America Action, a campaign group, Debra Houry, a former chief medical officer and deputy director at the CDC, told journalists: \u201cAs of three weeks ago, we hadn\u2019t seen evidence that acetaminophen was linked with autism, so it\u2019s curious to know how quickly that was developed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are many studies which refute a link, but the most important was a Swedish study of 2.4m births published in 2024 which used actual sibling data and found no relationship between exposure to paracetamol [known in the US as acetaminophen] in utero and subsequent autism, ADHD or intellectual disability,\u201d said Dr Monique Botha, associate professor in social and developmental psychology at Durham University.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n The fearmongering will prevent women from accessing the appropriate care during pregnancy.\n <\/p>\n

US medical practitioners also cast doubt on the putative link with acetaminophen.<\/p>\n

Dan Jernigan, another former CDC career scientist and former director of the national center for emerging and zoonotic infectious diseases, criticised Mr Kennedy\u2019s efforts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were all asked to be a part of autism studies and to put together [an autism plan],\u201d he said. “We helped develop some of that. But then over time, what we saw was [Mr Kennedy] having an increasingly top down approach, essentially \u2018my way or the highway,\u2019 with no regard again for the scientific processes.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Some researchers have also pleaded caution on hopes for leucovorin, which has been reportedly shown in some tests to trigger marked improvements in the speaking and understanding ability of some people with autism.<\/p>\n

Irva Hertz-Picciotto, an epidemiologist and autism specialist at the University of California, Davis, told the Washington Post that unrealistic expectations could lead to a loss of trust.<\/p>\n

\u201cI worry that it feels like everything is now tainted that comes out of the current administration,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Bruce Mirken, communications co-chair of Defend Public Health, poured cold water on the announcements in advance.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we don\u2019t know what he will claim today, we do know that Kennedy has a history of false statements related to autism and that the scientific evidence shows there is no \u2018autism epidemic\u2019,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The Guardian. Additional reporting by Melody Schreiber and agencies<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Trump administration unveiled highly contentious conclusions about the causes of autism, together with a push for research…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38287,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[6128,969,42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-38286","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-autism","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-headlines","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}