Donald Trump’s claims of a link between taking paracetamol and autism have been widely condemned and countered by medical experts worldwide, amid ongoing debate about rising rates of the neurodevelopmental disorder.

Does paracetamol cause autism?
The connection between paracetamol use and autism “has not come out of the blue”, said The Times: over the past decade, a “potential association between paracetamol exposure in the womb and autism” had been suggested by a few small, observational studies. But bigger “and more rigorous studies have disproved any causal link” and “reputable scientists are confident” that the popular painkiller does not increase the risk of autism, ADHD or learning disabilities.

In the largest and most recent study, involving 2.5 million children, scientists compared rates of autism between siblings where only one had been exposed to paracetamol in the womb. The researchers concluded that paracetamol use “was not associated with children’s risk of autism” and that previous links were likely the result of unrelated underlying factors.

What other debunked theories have circulated?
Trump has announced a wide-ranging effort to study the causes of autism, including resurfacing “long-debunked claims that ingredients in vaccines or timing shots close together could contribute to rising rates of autism in the US”, said The Telegraph.

The president has claimed, “without evidence, that hepatitis B vaccines should not be given until children are 12 years old, and that the combined measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) jab should be taken ‘separately’”.

What’s really behind the rise in autism diagnoses?
Experts believe that rising rates of autism in richer countries over recent decades are probably due to increased awareness and testing, and a broadening diagnostic definition of the neurological disorder.

Since 1980, when it was first recognised as a separate mental health condition in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, “the diagnostic criteria for autism have broadened”, said BBC Future. Another “big shift” occurred in 2013, when the manual “brought subcategories including Asperger’s syndrome under the umbrella of autism spectrum disorder”. As a result, “people who wouldn’t previously have received an autism diagnosis now are more likely to meet the criteria”.

“More than anything,” said Nature, “research has shown that the drivers of autism are fiendishly complicated.”

Read “What’s with Baum?” without knowing who wrote it and you might think it’s a “straightforwardly unremarkable” novel charting the “midlife crises of a neurotic, vaguely lecherous writer”, said Louis Chilton in The Independent. “But, of course, we do know the author of ‘Baum’. And that author is 89-year-old filmmaker Woody Allen.”

Allen’s novel – his first – comes five years after the release of his memoir, “Apropos of Nothing”, and arrives as his film career appears to have “tailed off” following allegations, which he denies, that he sexually abused his daughter in the early 1990s.

‘Neurotic Jewish journalist’
“What’s with Baum?” is “almost exactly what you’d expect from Woody Allen the novelist”, said Darragh McManus in the Irish Independent. The action follows Asher Baum, a neurotic Jewish journalist (and “frustrated” author) who loves beautiful women, good conversation and jazz.

In what is presumably an oblique reference to Allen’s own “cancellation” following the abuse claims, there’s a “brewing #MeToo-style scandal” as Baum is accused of “acting inappropriately” with a female journalist.

Allen spends much of the novel “dancing around taboos” as he details Baum’s “infatuation” with younger women, said Chilton in The Independent. Female characters are repeatedly referred to as “creatures”, and Baum’s wife is described as a “complex thoroughbred”. It’s all rather “wince-inducing, even if it weren’t coming from Allen’s pen”.

‘Impish’ prose
I thought Allen’s familiar new book was “fine”, said Alexandra Jacobs in The New York Times. It afforded me “a few hollow chuckles” after a particularly gruelling week. “Even kneecapped by the entertainment industry, he rises to knock out an impish piece of autumn prose as others might a game of pickleball.”

I wish he’d addressed the cancel culture subplot more directly, said Tanya Gold in The Telegraph. But there’s some “lovely comedy” peppered throughout the book, and Baum has “all the hallmarks” of an archetypal Allen protagonist from a film “I would love to watch”.

A very clever filmmaker might be able to “get round the plot’s implausibility, the thinness of the characters and the occasional discordant political correctness with good acting and cinematic technique”, said Melanie McDonagh in London’s The Standard, but in a novel these things are important. “‘What’s with Baum?’ might work better as a film.”

A group of Palestinians look out at the rubble of a bombed building in Gaza. This photograph, by Mahmoud Abu Hamda, features in “Against Erasure – Photographs from Gaza”, a group exhibition, at the P21 Gallery in central London, that opens today.

Mahmoud Abu Hamda

“It takes a certain swagger to make a thriller about terror attacks, online radicalisation and the rise of the far-right in Britain”, and then to make it “very funny indeed”, said Rebecca Nicholson in the Financial Times. But “Slow Horses” has returned to the small screen for its fifth season with a “renewed sense of nihilism and wit”.

Following a “fun but functional” fourth series, Jackson Lamb (Gary Oldman, pictured above) and his team of disgraced MI5 misfits are “licking their wounds” at Slough House. River Cartwright (Jack Lowden) is feeling “understandably glum” after discovering the real identity of his biological father, while the rest of the team are “burnt out, disaffected and tired of their friends dying all the time”.

So it’s a “treat” that the latest series focuses on Roddy Ho (Christopher Chung), said Nick De Semlyen in Empire. “Is there a more gloriously entertaining idiot on TV?” The cringy hacker has landed himself in “deep trouble” due to a “mysterious” new love interest who seems to be a honey trap.

“Slow Horses” is the only show I can think of that can skip from a devastating terrorist attack to the “unfortunate demise of a group of penguins without any jarring change in tone”, said Anita Singh in The Telegraph. 

The “villains” of the show are never predictable, and Lamb – who is even “tetchier” than normal – “continues to mock political correctness”, delivering his lines with a “zing”. Remarkably, this “impeccable” show isn’t seeing its quality tail off; season five returns with the same “supreme sense of confidence” as earlier instalments.

UK Retailers Are Bracing for a Budget-Busted Christmas
Andrea Felsted on Bloomberg
Retail’s pre-Christmas “golden quarter may be somewhat tarnished”, writes Andrea Felsted. The cost of living is “creeping up again” and the Budget will “land in the midst of the festive shopping season”. Although sales “have been pretty decent” recently, as “nights draw in, concern is escalating”. Christmas shouldn’t be a complete “disaster” because shoppers “often throw caution to the wind when times are tough”, but January, “when credit card bills arrive”, will definitely “be worse”.

My kids are autistic – how dare Trump blame me
Carrie Grant in The i Paper
Donald Trump’s “baseless” link between paracetamol and autism is “just the latest round of a fight” in which many parents of autistic children are “already on the ropes”, writes TV presenter Carrie Grant. We are always “in the line of fire”. Once, “it was our cold attitude” that caused our babies’ autism; “now it’s the pain medication we take during pregnancy”. This is “another stick to beat us with” when we’re already “firefighting daily”.

Princess Anne’s fetish undies photo almost makes you forget about Fergie. Almost
Carol Midgley in The Times
“If you don’t agree that Princess Anne is the best royal”, writes Carol Midgley, you’re clearly “mad”. Just consider Anne’s recent visit to a Caerphilly underwear factory, where she posed next to “BDSM-style fetish knickers”. She “clearly couldn’t care less” about being pictured with the “spank pants”, and “good for her”. Maybe she was trying to distract attention from “grasping Fergie and gruesome Andrew”; “talk about taking one for the team”.