{"id":163299,"date":"2025-09-27T07:29:03","date_gmt":"2025-09-27T07:29:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/163299\/"},"modified":"2025-09-27T07:29:03","modified_gmt":"2025-09-27T07:29:03","slug":"dont-trust-trump-how-uk-health-experts-are-fighting-back-against-a-war-on-medicine-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/163299\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Don\u2019t trust Trump\u2019: how UK health experts are fighting back against a war on medicine | Health"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wes Streeting, the UK health secretary, was in a government car heading back into central London from a flag-raising to mark the UK\u2019s recognition of Palestine when he saw the news<\/a>. \u201cHe was aghast,\u201d an aide said. Streeting was reading on his phone that Donald Trump had just warned women<\/a> not to take Tylenol \u2013 known outside the US as paracetamol \u2013 during pregnancy.<\/p>\n

The US president had alleged without evidence that the common painkiller caused autism in children. \u201cDon\u2019t take Tylenol,\u201d Trump said about a drug also known as acetaminophen.<\/p>\n

The British government has been criticised for tiptoeing around Trump on all manner of issues. But not, it seems, on this. Streeting decided to devise a plan to limit the fallout in the UK and reassure mothers-to-be that taking paracetamol was safe. He decided to rebut \u2013 publicly and vigorously \u2013 what Trump had said.<\/p>\n

Already booked to appear on a breakfast show the next morning, Streeting knew he would be asked about Trump. \u201cHe knew he had to be unequivocal,\u201d the aide said. \u201cThat whatever diplomatic issues we face, first and foremost our responsibility is people\u2019s health.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Listen to doctors, scientists\u2019<\/p>\n

When the question came, Streeting was brutal. \u201cI trust doctors over President Trump, frankly, on this,\u201d he said. \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.<\/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 even take my word for it, as a politician \u2013 listen to British doctors, British scientists, the NHS.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wes Streeting. Photograph: Jordan Pettitt\/PA<\/p>\n

His headline-making response to Trump\u2019s baseless claim was complemented by a \u201cflood the airwaves\u201d strategy that he and his Department of Health<\/a> and Social Care (DHSC) had begun putting in place the day before.<\/p>\n

Senior figures from bodies such as the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, which regulates medicines, NHS England, the Royal College of GPs, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society and the UK Health Security Agency conveyed similar messages to Streeting\u2019s in media interviews throughout Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The National Autistic Society criticised \u201cthe incessant misinformation about autism from President Trump and [the US health secretary] Robert F Kennedy Jr\u201d, which it said would undermine decades of research and leave autistic people \u201cdismayed and frightened\u201d.<\/p>\n

Their responses aligned with those issued<\/a> by the World Health Organization (WHO) and leading medical bodies<\/a> in the US.<\/p>\n

In addition, DHSC officials gave doctors and influencers with large followings on social media factsheets and briefings on paracetamol and pregnancy to help ensure they got accurate, well-evidenced information out on platforms such as X, TikTok and Instagram.<\/p>\n

Recent months have brought several high-profile examples<\/a> of untruths about medicine and such misinformation is causing growing alarm in the global health community.<\/p>\n

In June, cancer doctors revealed their horror that some patients were shunning established treatments for the disease and instead opting for untested quack regimes such as coffee enemas and raw juice diets.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe truth behind Trump’s claims about autism and paracetamol, or Tylenol \u2013 video<\/p>\n

Days later, the BBC disclosed<\/a> how Paloma Shemirani, the daughter of a nurse turned anti-vaxxer, Kate Shemirani, had died after rejecting chemotherapy for non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The 23-year-old had chosen to use Gerson therapy, an unproven treatment for cancer, instead.<\/p>\n

And this month in an appearance on the main stage at Reform UK\u2019s conference, the cardiologist claimed<\/a> that King Charles and the Princess of Wales\u2019s cancer diagnoses were linked to them having had the Covid vaccine.<\/p>\n

But experts who study health misinformation see Trump\u2019s remarks as a worrying new low.<\/p>\n

Helen Bedford, a professor of child health at University College London (UCL), said: \u201cI was horrified, because it\u2019s not evidence-based and he is the most powerful man in the world. It was shocking because you know the impact it\u2019s going to have, not just on pregnant women but also because it implies that autism is something to be avoided. It was a horrifying announcement, damaging and dangerous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr Susanna Kola-Palmer, a psychologist at the University of Huddersfield, said: \u201cPeople are prone to authority bias, trusting and believing what someone in authority says just because they are an authority figure, not necessarily because they are right. Donald Trump, as the US president, is a powerful public figure and therefore lots of people will accept what he says without questioning it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen health misinformation is being peddled so publicly by such a powerful person, it is both deeply troubling and dangerous, as it risks eroding public trust in science and compromising public health.\u201d<\/p>\n

Health experts fear Trump linking acetaminophen to autism could dissuade pregnant women \u2013 who already have few medicines available if they fall sick \u2013 from using it and in turn lead to illnesses such as pain or a fever going untreated and harming them or their unborn child.<\/p>\n

Pharmacists in the UK report that Trump\u2019s remarks may already be influencing some people\u2019s decisions about their health. In a survey of 500 pharmacies, 24% said they had encountered patients this week who were questioning paracetamol\u2019s safety.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are alarming findings which show that comments made in the US are having a direct impact on patients in the UK and potentially deterring some from taking what are proven and safe medical treatments,\u201d said Olivier Picard, the chair of the National Pharmacy Association.<\/p>\n

\u2018Fringe narratives\u2019<\/p>\n

Writing in the Lancet<\/a> medical journal in July, Heidi Larson, a professor of anthropology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, identified the US as the origin of so much of the \u201cpandemic of misinformation\u201d and \u201cfringe narratives\u201d that caused controversy during the Covid pandemic and appear to have gained even more traction since.<\/p>\n

For example, from 2019to 2021 the US acted as \u201ca major exporter of Covid-19 vaccine misinformation, with American accounts disproportionately represented as central hubs in global misinformation networks\u201d, she said. That influenced behaviour in countries as far away as Nigeria, Ghana and Bulgaria, contributing to reduced uptake of Covid and childhood vaccines.<\/p>\n

As a result, organisations such as the WHO and Gavi, the vaccines alliance, in their day-to-day work promoting vaccines \u201care increasingly confronted by vaccine hesitancy grounded in exported disinformation, much of it directly traceable to American political discourse and media,\u201d Larson said.<\/p>\n

Concerted efforts to undermine vaccines are rising despite the WHO\u2019s estimate<\/a> that vaccines have saved 154 million lives since 1974 \u2013 101 million of them children \u2013 and in an era of rapid progress in medical science when new vaccines appear to offer promise on diseases for which until recently they were not used.<\/p>\n

So how can the growing threat misinformation poses to health worldwide be tackled?<\/p>\n

A vaccination station in Kampala, Uganda. The WHO estimates vaccines have saved 154 million lives since 1974. Photograph: Hajarah Nalwadda\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

There is no obvious way to stop the authoritarian Trump and Kennedy promoting wild theories about health despite a lack of evidence. But experts say new approaches in response are needed, especially with big tech firms whose social media platforms spread so much of the scaremongering. There is a consensus that simply relying on conveying accurate information via leaflets and websites is not enough.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile messages from Wes Streeting<\/a> and professional organisations are very helpful, evidence shows that what matters to the public is the individual conversations they have with health professionals,\u201d Bedford said, citing the many questions a parent may have before their child starts their schedule of vaccinations. \u201cMost people trust health professionals and want to talk to them when they have concerns and questions. That can be very powerful and very influential.\u201d<\/p>\n

But she noted that the UK has a shortage of many types of health professionals \u2013 health visitor numbers have fallen sharply since 2015 \u2013 so how such informative and potentially reassuring conversations would happen was not obvious. A different mindset among clinicians and a bigger health workforce were needed to enable such a shift to pro-active, pre-treatment appointments, she said.<\/p>\n

Paracetamol on sale in the UK. Pharmacists report that Trump\u2019s remarks may already be influencing some people in the UK\u2019s decisions about their health. Photograph: Andy Rain\/EPA<\/p>\n

Chris van Tulleken, an NHS infectious diseases doctor and global health expert at UCL, cautioned that clinicians having such conversations should not automatically disregard the views of patients who may have suspicious, even conspiratorial views about big pharma, given some of its products have caused major harm.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have to meet people where they are. If you just tweet with the hashtag \u2018vaccines work\u2019, which some people do, the difficulty is that there are some vaccines with serious side-effects. I run a clinic where we\u2019re cautious about certain vaccines,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Last year the WHO agreed a partnership with TikTok involving factchecking and the social media company doing more to remove content that could endanger health.<\/p>\n

The WHO\u2019s Fides network<\/a> brings together more than 1,000 health professionals who are active on social media \u201cto amplify trustworthy content and push back against harmful misinformation\u201d, said Dr Alex Ruani, one of those involved. \u201cIt\u2019s essentially a \u2018trusted voices\u2019 network.\u201d For instance, Dr Mikhail \u201cMike\u201d Varshavski, one of those voices, has more than 29 million followers on social media.<\/p>\n

Ruani said social media platforms needed to do much more. \u201cBig tech already know how to downrank, demote, deamplify or quarantine content. These processes can and should be applied to high-risk content [about health],\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need better risk flags and warnings at the point of exposure, a bit like how you get pop-ups for cookies or how spam filters work in email. These friction nudges can be built into browsers or apps to give people a heads-up about dodgy content before they consume or share it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Wes Streeting, the UK health secretary, was in a government car heading back into central London from a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163300,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-163299","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163299","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=163299"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163299\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163300"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163299"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163299"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163299"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}