{"id":38847,"date":"2025-09-23T13:51:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T13:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/38847\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T13:51:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T13:51:07","slug":"pay-no-attention-global-health-agencies-dismiss-false-trump-claim-on-everyday-painkillers-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/38847\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Pay no attention\u2019: global health agencies dismiss false Trump claim on everyday painkillers | Health"},"content":{"rendered":"

Global health agencies and regulators have dismissed unscientific advice from Donald Trump<\/a> that made an unproven link between autism and the use of everyday painkillers and vaccines.<\/p>\n

In a sign of how worried foreign governments are about the US president\u2019s comments, the health secretary of the UK, which is one the US\u2019s closest allies, told the British public<\/a> they should not \u201cpay any attention whatsoever to what Donald Trump says about medicine\u201d.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Trump told pregnant women<\/a> to avoid taking acetaminophen, which is sold in the US as Tylenol and known internationally as paracetamol, adding that those who could not \u201ctough it out\u201d should limit their intake.<\/p>\n

He also said \u2013 in comments that risk exposing children to fatal diseases \u2013 that parents of young children should delay or avoid some vaccines. \u201cDon\u2019t let them pump your baby up with the largest pile of stuff you\u2019ve ever seen in your life,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The World Health<\/a> Organization said on Tuesday that questioning the value of lifesaving vaccines was misguided and that \u200be\u200bvidence linking paracetamol use in pregnancy and autism w\u200bas \u201cinconsistent\u201d\u200b.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that vaccines do not cause autism,\u201d said the WHO spokesperson Tarik Ja\u0161arevi\u0107. \u201cVaccines, as I said, save countless lives. So this is something that science has proven, and these things should not be really questioned.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wes Streeting, the UK health secretary, was even more direct in his criticism, telling ITV: \u201cI trust doctors over President Trump, frankly, on this. I\u2019ve just got to be really clear about this: there is no evidence to link the use of paracetamol by pregnant women to autism in their children. None.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I would just say to people watching: don\u2019t pay any attention whatsoever to what Donald Trump says about medicine. In fact, don\u2019t take even take my word for it, as a politician \u2013 listen to British doctors, British scientists, the [National Health Service].\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AutismAutism expert says Trump\u2019s Tylenol claims \u2018aren’t based in fact\u2019 \u2013 video<\/p>\n

Hours after Trump made his comments, the MHRA, the UK\u2019s healthcare regulator, released a statement saying there was no evidence linking paracetamol use during pregnancy with autism.<\/p>\n

Dr Alison Cave, chief safety officer at the agency, warned that \u201cuntreated pain and fever can pose risks to the unborn baby\u201d and it was important to manage these symptoms with recommended treatments.<\/p>\n

The European Medicines Agency also stuck by its guidelines. The EU agency\u2019s chief medical officer, Steffen Thirstrup, said its advice was \u201cbased on a rigorous assessment of the available scientific data and we have found no evidence that taking paracetamol during pregnancy causes autism in children\u201d. When asked, an EU commission spokesperson referred to the EMA findings. <\/p>\n

The Therapeutic Goods Administration, the medicines regulator in Australia, confirmed paracetamol was safe for use in pregnancy and rejected the link to neurodevelopmental conditions.<\/p>\n

It issued a statement saying it would \u201cjoin with other global medicines regulators<\/a>, leading clinicians and scientists worldwide in rejecting claims regarding the use of paracetamol in pregnancy, and the subsequent risk of development of ADHD or autism in children\u201d.<\/p>\n

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Trump made his announcement alongside his health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr, who has a record of making unproven claims<\/a> about autism and other conspiracy theories linked to health and vaccines.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Kennedy pledged to determine the \u201ccause\u201d of autism and announce the findings this month. Monday\u2019s press conference appears to be an effort to provide results on the deadline Kennedy set himself, although he failed to give any new information backed by science.<\/p>\n

Experts say that finding the underlying factors of a complex syndrome that has been studied for decades was unrealistic.<\/p>\n

Autism diagnoses have been rising. One in 31 children aged eight had a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder in the US in 2022, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That compares with about one in 150 in 2000.<\/p>\n

Doctors believe there are two main reasons for the rise, and neither relates to vaccines or medication. First, the definition of autism has broadened. Second, parents have increasingly sought a diagnosis of autism, which has become better known publicly.<\/p>\n

In its assessment, the White House appears to be relying on<\/a> a 2025 review of 46 earlier studies<\/a> that suggested an association between prenatal paracetamol exposure and an increased chance of neurodevelopmental disorders. Critically, those researchers said the study did not prove the drug caused the outcomes and advised that pregnant women should continue to use acetaminophen at the lowest possible dose and for the shortest possible period.<\/p>\n

Health experts have pointed instead to a large Swedish study<\/a> published in 2024, which tracked 2.4 million births and found no evidence of an association between prenatal exposure to the drug and autism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Global health agencies and regulators have dismissed unscientific advice from Donald Trump that made an unproven link between…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38848,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[134,527,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-38847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38847"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38847\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}