![\"Health](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/ctc-l-trump-tylenol.jpg\")
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., left, talks to President Donald Trump during an event about autism in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, Sept. 22, 2025. (Tierney L. Cross\/The New York Times)<\/p>\nPatients often have many questions for Dr. Ashish Premkumar, an OB-GYN who specializes in high-risk pregnancies.<\/p>\n
But before this week, he wouldn\u2019t have expected the safety of Tylenol to be at the top of the list of concerns for his high-risk patients. Yet he\u2019s been fielding questions about the common pain reliever all week, including from one of his patients who\u2019s been on the medication recently to help deal with complications, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe asked if it was safe because she had heard what the president had said,\u201d said Premkumar, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at UChicago Medicine who is also an assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Chicago. \u201cShe was anxious about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He told her it was safe to continue taking acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, and she relaxed, he said. But such discussions put him in a \u201cvery strange position,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m just this little doctor who did this training \u2026 but then I have the president of the United States essentially counterarguing what we\u2019re trying to do,\u201d Premkumar said.<\/p>\n
Chicago-area OB-GYNs say they\u2019ve been answering questions all week about the safety of Tylenol after President Donald Trump urged women Monday to limit their use of the medication during pregnancy, saying it can be associated with an increased risk of autism.<\/p>\n
\u201cTaking Tylenol is not good,\u201d Trump said during a news conference. \u201cFor this reason, (we) are strongly recommending that women limit Tylenol use during pregnancy unless medically necessary.\u201d He encouraged women to talk with their doctors \u201cfor more information about limiting the use of this medication while pregnant.\u201d<\/p>\n
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., left, talks to President Donald Trump during an event about autism in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, Sept. 22, 2025. (Tierney L. Cross\/The New York Times)<\/p>\n
During the announcement<\/a>, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., secretary of Health and Human Services, cited \u201cclinical and laboratory studies that suggest a potential association between acetaminophen use during pregnancy and adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes, including later diagnosis for ADHD and autism.\u201d Kennedy said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration would begin the process of a safety label change for the medication.<\/p>\n Following the announcement, leading medical associations fired back against the claims.<\/p>\n The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said in a statement<\/a> that current evidence does not support the idea that acetaminophen use during pregnancy causes neurodevelopmental disorders. The Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine issued a similar statement<\/a> saying acetaminophen remains, \u201can appropriate medication to treat pain and fever during pregnancy.\u201d<\/p>\n Studies that showed an association between autism and acetaminophen use during pregnancy were methodologically flawed, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said.<\/p>\n Kenvue, the company behind Tylenol, said in a statement: \u201cWe believe independent, sound science clearly shows that taking acetaminophen does not cause autism. We strongly disagree with any suggestion otherwise and are deeply concerned about the health risks and confusion this poses for expecting mothers and parents.\u201d<\/p>\n Not surprisingly, the results of this disagreement between medical experts and the Trump administration have been spilling into local doctors offices and hospitals across the Chicago area all week.<\/p>\n Dr. David Ouyang said some of his patients at Endeavor Health this week have told him they think the federal government\u2019s claims about Tylenol are bogus, while other patients have been very concerned.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2018ve had some patients who came in incredibly anxious and worried,\u201d said Ouyang, who is division director of maternal-fetal medicine at Endeavor.<\/p>\n He said one patient came expressing \u201ca profound amount of guilt\u201d for using Tylenol in a past pregnancy, even though her child is seemingly healthy.<\/p>\n \u201cDefinitely (we) are seeing \u2026 patients who have suddenly been burdened with this significant amount of guilt and doubt,\u201d Ouyang said.<\/p>\n Dr. Michelle Winter, chair of obstetrics and gynecology at Duly Health and Care, said she had one mother this week, who has a child with autism, tearfully ask her, \u201cIs this something that I did?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s always heartbreaking as a physician to see that,\u201d Winter said. \u201cI just kind of gave her the information that we had, and gave her reassurance that, no, this is not something we believe you caused to happen to your child.\u201d<\/p>\n Winter said she started hearing more questions from patients toward the end of this week, once news of the announcement had a chance to sink in. Among the materials Duly doctors give to pregnant patients is a list of safe over-the-counter medications \u2014 a list that includes Tylenol. Some patients have asked Winter if it should be off the list now.<\/p>\n Winter said she\u2019s told patients that it is still on the list. She\u2019s explained that doctors already knew that there were some studies showing an association between acetaminophen use during pregnancy and autism, Winter tells patients, but she also explains that other studies don\u2019t show an association, and no study has shown that it causes autism.<\/p>\n \u201cWe certainly don\u2019t want to let our fevers go untreated, and I don\u2019t want them turning to unsafe (during pregnancy) alternatives like ibuprofen or other NSAIDs (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug),\u201d Winter said. \u201cAs with any medication in pregnancy, whether it\u2019s over-the-counter or prescription, I generally advise patients they should only be taking medications when necessary.\u201d<\/p>\n Ouyang said he\u2019s also telling patients that it\u2019s still safe to use Tylenol to treat fevers and pain during pregnancy, especially because high fevers and pain during pregnancy can carry their own risks if not treated.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of changes to your body during pregnancy,\u201d Ouyang said. \u201cIf somebody has pain and discomfort to the point where other measures aren\u2019t assisting them in being active or being able to manage that pain, that can be a problem. We generally don\u2019t tell our patients to tough it out in situations like that.\u201d<\/p>\n Premkumar said, among his patients, the announcement seems to have reinforced existing attitudes toward health care. Patients who tend to distrust the health care system seem concerned about the Tylenol announcement while those who have more trust in the system do not.<\/p>\n It\u2019s important for patients to ask questions, Premkumar said, but he worries this latest announcement could lead to less trust between doctors and patients.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is really important that patients trust their OB-GYNs,\u201d Premkumar said. \u201cThis kind of stuff where we say, \u2018Oh it\u2019s nothing. This is all bad data, or the president doesn\u2019t know what he\u2019s talking about,\u2019 it still (produces) that lingering doubt. My doctors say this isn\u2019t causing this but the president does.\u201d<\/p>\n Endeavor Health pediatrician Dr. Annie Mlnarik said Tylenol has long been a go-to medication for many patients, including pregnant women and infants.<\/p>\n Now, she worries about mothers of children with autism.<\/p>\n \u201cIt just breaks my heart for the families who have children who are autistic, now the moms are potentially wondering, \u2018Could I have been a part of causing this?\u2019 even though they weren\u2019t,\u201d Mlnarik said. \u201cTylenol is such a safe medication, and it\u2019s so well studied.\u201d<\/p>\n The leader of the National Institutes of Health also announced Monday that the agency would spend an additional $50 million to fund more than a dozen autism research projects focusing on causes and therapies for autism. Federal health leaders also said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration would authorize the use of a medication called leucovorin for children with autism.<\/p>\n The administration cautioned that \u201cit is important to note that leucovorin is not a cure for (autism spectrum disorder) and may only lead to improvements in speech-related deficits for a subset of children with (autism spectrum disorder).\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Patients often have many questions for Dr. Ashish Premkumar, an OB-GYN who specializes in high-risk pregnancies. But before…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184326,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[28,97,2558,243,3],"class_list":{"0":"post-184325","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-latest-headlines","11":"tag-medication","12":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184325"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184325\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}