{"id":377766,"date":"2026-04-06T11:29:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T11:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/377766\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T11:29:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T11:29:09","slug":"from-ers-to-courtrooms-trumps-warning-that-pregnant-women-shouldnt-take-tylenol-is-causing-shockwaves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/377766\/","title":{"rendered":"From ERs to courtrooms, Trump\u2019s warning that pregnant women shouldn\u2019t take Tylenol is causing shockwaves"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n Six months after President Donald Trump shocked mainstream medicine by saying pregnant women shouldn\u2019t take Tylenol<\/a> because it is \u201cassociated with a very increased risk of autism,\u201d the effects of his comments are still rippling across the country.\n <\/p>\n

\n Early analysis of hospital prescriptions since September suggests fewer pregnant patients<\/a> in emergency rooms were taking acetaminophen, the generic name for the drug Tylenol, in the first few months since the White House announcement, according to a recently published report in the medical journal, The Lancet.\n <\/p>\n

\n A state attorney general has sued Tylenol\u2019s makers, arguing they did not disclose the risks. And amid concerns about autism misinformation, researchers have founded an independent group to rival government efforts.\n <\/p>\n

\n Even a scientist who has prominently argued that there is a link between Tylenol and autism thinks Trump oversold the risk to pregnant women.\n <\/p>\n

\n Dr. William Parker, a biochemist with ties to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., has argued for years that acetaminophen is linked to autism \u2014 claims that have formed the basis of the Trump administration\u2019s anti-Tylenol stance.\n <\/p>\n

\n But in a recent interview with CNN, Parker admitted the alleged link between acetaminophen use in pregnancy and autism is supported by only the \u201cweakest data.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Instead, Parker says the risk is more associated with giving it to newborns, a link that mainstream research does not support. In fact, researchers whose work Parker has based his conclusions on say that he\u2019s misinterpreting their results. Parker says they\u2019re the ones misinterpreting the data.\n <\/p>\n

\n The debate over Tylenol\u2019s safety has spilled into courtrooms and conference halls.\n <\/p>\n

\n In October, Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Tylenol maker Kenvue and Johnson & Johnson, which originally developed the drug, for \u201cdeceptively marketing Tylenol to pregnant mothers.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Paxton alleges the companies knew that early exposure to acetaminophen, Tylenol\u2019s only active ingredient, leads to a \u201csignificantly increased risk of autism and other disorders.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n In February, a Texas judge rejected Kenvue\u2019s request to dismiss the case.\n <\/p>\n

\n Kenvue has said \u201cindependent, sound science\u201d has shown acetaminophen does not cause autism. Major medical associations including the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists have also pushed back on such claims<\/a> and said acetaminophen is the safest pain reliever to use during pregnancy.\n <\/p>\n

\"President<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe dissemination of false information [has had] significant repercussions,\u201d Dr. Helen Tager-Flusberg, a professor emerita at Boston University and director of the Center for Autism Research Excellence, said in March at an event convened by autism researchers.\n <\/p>\n

\n In an effort to take back the narrative and organize against what they see as a movement based on misinformation, Tager-Flusberg and other autism experts founded an independent group in January to coordinate research and counter the administration\u2019s shifted focus.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cAll of this has very a significant impact on science,\u201d Tager-Flusberg said during the group\u2019s first meeting.\n <\/p>\n

\n Parker, meanwhile, still agrees with the Trump administration\u2019s overall push to link Tylenol to autism \u2014 even if he differed with the president\u2019s statement on use by pregnant women.\n <\/p>\n

\n A biochemist and immunologist, Parker acknowledges that he is a scientist, not a doctor. He doesn\u2019t work with patients or make diagnoses.\n <\/p>\n

\n As a researcher at Duke University, Parker said he started looking into acetaminophen and autism nearly two decades ago after work on the digestive tract and autoimmune disorders.\n <\/p>\n

\n He and his co-authors published their \u201cfirst real good\u201d paper<\/a>, as he put it to CNN, on the purported link in 2017, writing that acetaminophen could be \u201cone explanation for the increased prevalence of autism.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n But his work didn\u2019t pick up much traction then.\n <\/p>\n

\n Parker left Duke in 2021 and started his own lab, WPLab, studying links between the immune system and acetaminophen.\n <\/p>\n

\n When Kennedy announced last spring<\/a> that he would have answers about autism\u2019s causes in six months, Parker\u2019s theories quickly moved into focus.\n <\/p>\n

\n While Parker declined to comment about his contact with Kennedy and the Trump administration, he previously told The Atlantic<\/a> that he spoke with the health secretary, and other health officials including National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya, last summer about his research.\n <\/p>\n

\n And he\u2019s been welcomed by Kennedy\u2019s inner circle. Parker appeared in March on the weekly MAHA Action call led by Tony Lyons, a Kennedy campaign fundraiser and president of Skyhorse Publishing, which will release Parker\u2019s book, \u201cTylenol and Autism,\u201d in June.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cAcetaminophen causes many, if not most, cases of autism spectrum disorder,\u201d he told listeners.\n <\/p>\n

\n To Parker, the connection is so clear that there is no need for more research on acetaminophen, at least.\n <\/p>\n

\n But the focus on use during pregnancy has left him befuddled and a little frustrated.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWhy is everyone focused on one line of evidence?\u201d Parker told CNN. \u201cIt\u2019s nothing like the risk of using acetaminophen, say, during labor and delivery or during the first two months of life, or even the first three years of life.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Autism researchers are also frustrated \u2014 by Parker\u2019s continued efforts to link Tylenol use to autism.\n <\/p>\n

\n Parker has relied in part on data from Sweden, published by the Karolinska Institutet and Drexel University, whose scientists dispute his interpretation of their work.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIf we come up with these things that are just associations and we start to intervene on them, the kind of the best-case scenario is that we\u2019ve wasted our time and money,\u201d said Dr. Renee Gardner, a toxicologist at Karolinska Institutet who led an oft-cited study<\/a> that says there is no link between acetaminophen use and autism. \u201cBut the worst-case scenario is that we actually do potential damage.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Acetaminophen is advised by major medical organizations as the only safe pain and fever reliever during pregnancy.\n <\/p>\n

\n The administration\u2019s views on autism have resulted in a big shift in federal funding, leading to an infusion of money into research on the causes of autism, but cuts across federal scientific research overall.\n <\/p>\n

\n NIH\u2019s $50 million initiative to study the causes of autism, announced last year, will fund projects such as research on genetic factors to environmental exposures and on diet.\n <\/p>\n

\n More recently, Kennedy dismissed an entire panel of autism experts advising government research, the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee, and appointed a new committee that included people who have supported the disproven theory that vaccines cause autism. At least one of the newly appointed members, Dr. Elizabeth Mumper, has backed the link between acetaminophen and autism, telling a Texas news station<\/a> in September that \u201cI became aware of this problem about two decades ago.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"Food<\/p>\n

\n Researchers and advocates, including former members Kennedy dismissed from the IACC, have lamented the narrow focus this administration has taken.\n <\/p>\n

\n Several of them, including Tager-Flusberg, this January formed the Independent Autism Coordinating Committee \u2014 a pointed reference to the reassembled government panel.\n <\/p>\n

\n Meeting in March around a long table in a wood-paneled room of the National Press Club, members of the new, nongovernmental group discussed the impact they were already seeing.\n <\/p>\n

\n Overall funding for autism research has increased, but with scientists left in limbo by federal spending cuts, nongovernmental organizations are stepping in to fund studies, said Alison Singer, founder of the Autism Science Foundation.\n <\/p>\n

\n Private funding for autism-related studies surged from 17.5% of total funding in 2020 to 40% of an estimated $560 million last year, she said during the meeting.\n <\/p>\n

\n The inaugural meeting, which spanned most of the day, included some presentations on genetic drivers of autism but largely dwelled on other research and policy the members said is badly needed: access to care, costs, quality of treatments and of life for people with autism.\n <\/p>\n

\n Their reconstituted government counterpart, now stocked with Kennedy appointees, has not yet met this year.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Six months after President Donald Trump shocked mainstream medicine by saying pregnant women shouldn\u2019t take Tylenol because it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377767,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[163,85,46,482],"class_list":{"0":"post-377766","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-medication"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377766","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377766"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377766\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377766"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377766"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377766"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}