President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Monday announced research that links acetaminophen use during pregnancy to a heightened risk of autism in children.
“The meteoric rise in autism is among the most alarming public health developments in history. There’s never been anything like this,” Trump said Monday.
Acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, is widely used for pain relief and fever reduction, and many pregnant women take it to ease discomfort during pregnancy.
“So taking Tylenol is not good,” Trump continued. “For this reason, they are strongly recommending that women limit Tylenol use during pregnancy unless medically necessary.”
Trump also criticized over-vaccination of young children, saying, “It’s too much liquid, too many different things are going into that baby at too big a number the size of this thing. When you look at it, it’s like 80 different vaccines and beyond vaccines, 80, and you give that to a little kid.”
The administration cited data from the Boston Birth Cohort, the Nurses’ Health Study, and Mount Sinai-Harvard. FDA Commissioner Marty Makary said, “We now have data we cannot ignore,” adding that the studies found a “causal relationship between prenatal acetaminophen use and neurodevelopmental disorders of ADHD and autism spectrum disorder.”
In April, the Trump administration announced plans for a large-scale research initiative to investigate autism’s causes. Kennedy, who has been outspoken about rising rates of chronic illness in children, said the NIH, FDA, CDC, and CMS are “turning over every stone to identify the ideology of the autism epidemic and how patients and parents can prevent and reverse this alarming trend.”
“We have broken down the traditional silos that have long separated these agencies, and we have fast-tracked research and guidance,” Kennedy said. “Historically, NIH has focused on almost solely on politically safe and entirely fruitless research about the genetic drivers of autism. And that would be like studying the genetic drivers of lung cancer without looking at cigarettes, and that’s what NIH has been doing for 20 years.”
Tylenol manufacturer Kenvue rejected the administration’s claims, arguing that “acetaminophen is the safest pain reliever option for pregnant women.”
“We believe independent, sound science clearly shows that taking acetaminophen does not cause autism,” a spokesperson for the company said. “We strongly disagree with any suggestion otherwise and are deeply concerned with the health risk this poses for expecting mothers.”
