{"id":155543,"date":"2025-09-23T14:04:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-23T14:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/155543\/"},"modified":"2025-09-23T14:04:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-23T14:04:09","slug":"wes-streeting-rejects-trump-claim-linking-paracetamol-and-autism-wes-streeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/155543\/","title":{"rendered":"Wes Streeting rejects Trump claim linking paracetamol and autism | Wes Streeting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wes Streeting has rejected<\/a> Donald Trump\u2019s claims of a link between taking paracetamol in pregnancy and autism, urging mothers-to-be to ignore the US president\u2019s remarks.<\/p>\n

The health secretary challenged Trump\u2019s statements, which medical experts have stressed are not based on evidence<\/a>, as part of a drive to reassure mothers-to-be in the UK.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\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,\u201d Streeting said on ITV\u2019s Lorraine.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn fact a major study was done back in 2024 in Sweden, involving 2.4 million children, and it did not uphold those claims. So I would just say to people watching: don\u2019t pay any attention whatsoever to what Donald Trump<\/a> says about medicine. In fact, don\u2019t even take my word for it as a politician. Listen to British doctors, British scientists, the NHS.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really important that at a time when you know there is scepticism \u2013 and I don\u2019t think scepticism itself, asking questions, is in itself a bad thing, by all means ask questions \u2013 but we\u2019ve got to follow medical science.\u201d<\/p>\n

Streeting spoke out after Trump claimed there had been a \u201cmeteoric rise\u201d in the number of cases of autism, pinpointing paracetamol as a cause and advising women not to take the drug during their pregnancy. The US authorities intend that packets of the drug \u2013 known in the US as Tylenol \u2013 will in future carry labels linking it to an alleged higher risk of autism.<\/p>\n

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

The National Autistic Society voiced its alarm at Trump and his health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr<\/a>, blaming paracetamol for autism in children in the US.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe incessant misinformation about autism from President Trump and Robert F Kennedy Jr risks undermining decades of research by respected experts in the field,\u201d said Mel Merritt, the charity\u2019s head of policy and campaigns.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnderstandably, autistic people will be dismayed and frightened by this announcement, and we would urge our government and the NHS to stand by autistic people and to condemn this misinformation. To do otherwise risks creating further fear, stigmatisation and harm.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe urge anyone looking for information about autism to visit websites from trusted organisations such as the NHS and the National Autistic Society.\u201d<\/p>\n

Medical and scientific experts in the UK have condemned Trump\u2019s remarks.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThere is a long history of a cottage industry of false causes and \u2018treatments\u2019 offered for autism that prey on desperate people\u2019s hopes and fears,\u201d said Dr Steven Kapp, a senior lecturer in psychology at the University of Portsmouth and member of the Coalition of Autism<\/a> Scientists.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is sad that unqualified demagogues continue to disregard science.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prof Laurie Tomlinson, a National Institute of Health Research professor at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said: \u201cAlongside my research experience, I am also the mother of two autistic children and I know that this announcement will cause distress and guilt to many parents, who often ask themselves whether they are to blame.<\/p>\n

\u201cI urge those parents to focus on the countless number of reputable sources of evidence published to date that do not show a link between paracetamol and autism, and to seek medical advice from their own GP or health practitioner.<\/p>\n

\u201cI urge you to not get caught up in a political misinformation agenda that is trying to hunt for an \u2018easy\u2019 answer as to how autism develops, and does not serve to help our children.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wes Streeting has rejected Donald Trump\u2019s claims of a link between taking paracetamol in pregnancy and autism, urging…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155544,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-155543","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}