{"id":592470,"date":"2026-08-13T23:12:29","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T23:12:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/592470\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T23:12:29","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T23:12:29","slug":"prescriptions-for-leucovorin-soar-after-white-house-announcement-on-autism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/592470\/","title":{"rendered":"Prescriptions for leucovorin soar after White House announcement on autism"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2025, 47,394 children received 150,026 leucovorin prescriptions. This represents a weekly spike of children with leucovorin prescriptions, from 734 to 5,858, a 700% increase. More prescriptions were given to children ages 6 to 11 living in the southern United States than in other regions. At the same time, the researchers didn\u2019t observe changes in leucovorin prescriptions for adults.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Our findings demonstrate the power of the federal government to influence medical practice,” Chua said. “Given this power, it is important that the government\u2019s messaging about medications is based on rigorous evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Distracting and confusing\u2019<\/p>\n

Some people in the autism community worried that suggesting that leucovorin could treat autism could be harmful.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very concerning for several reasons. The largest one being that we need our government to be a reassuring voice connecting families to the scientific evidence and pointing people in the right direction of what\u2019s best for children,\u201d Zoe Gross, director of advocacy at the Autistic Self Advocacy Network, told CIDRAP News.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is not that,\u201d she added. This is telling people to go all in on a random thing that probably doesn\u2019t work.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The\u00a0American Academy of Pediatrics<\/a> says that more research is needed to examine who might benefit from leucovorin and whether it\u2019s safe and effective.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the administration made that recommendation, the evidence wasn\u2019t strong enough,\u201d Gross said. In February 2026, the largest study on leucovorin and autism was\u00a0retracted<\/a>. \u201cThe evidence is even weaker than it was.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gross would rather see the federal government focus on supporting services for autistic people across the lifespan. The One Big Beautiful Bill significantly cut funding to Medicaid and home and community-based services, which help many autistic people remain independent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese (services) are provided to people of all ages. They\u2019re provided to people who need help with activities of daily living. That\u2019s many autistic people,\u201d Gross said. \u201cFor many people, these services are the difference between living where they choose and being forced to live in an institution.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

She said the administration\u2019s focus on autism has created a lot of misunderstanding.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s distracting and confusing for anyone, especially new parents who are making decisions about, for example, their children\u2019s vaccines or vaccines schedules and are being told that vaccines may cause autism\u2014even though that\u2019s not true,\u201d Gross said. \u201cIt\u2019s concerning for parents of autistic kids who are now essentially being blamed for their kids\u2019 autism and pointed in the direction of fake treatments.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2025, 47,394 children received 150,026 leucovorin prescriptions. This represents a weekly spike of children with leucovorin prescriptions,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":592471,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[103,61,60],"class_list":["post-592470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592470","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=592470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/592471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}