Trump promotes an unproven Tylenol-autism link

What happened

Medical experts sharply criticized President Trump’s announcement last week linking the use of Tylenol during pregnancy to an increased risk of autism in children, saying the claim was not supported by science. Standing with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who had promised to name the cause of “the autism epidemic” by September, Trump said pregnant women with pain or fever should “tough it out” and “fight like hell not to take” the pain reliever. The FDA said that while there was no proven causal link, it would add a caution label to acetaminophen and recommend minimizing prenatal use. It also bypassed normal procedure to approve the use of leucovorin—an immune-boosting drug taken by cancer patients—to treat autism in children; scientists said data on the drug as an autism treatment is limited. Steven Fleischman, head of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said suggesting Tylenol causes autism was “irresponsible” and sent a “harmful and confusing message.”

Trump also railed against the CDC’s recommended vaccine schedule. “They pump so much stuff into those beautiful little babies, it’s a disgrace,” he said. “It looks like they’re pumping into a horse. You have a little child, a little fragile child, and you get a vat of 80 different vaccines.” In fact, babies are typically vaccinated against nine diseases, and most shots protect against several at once. Kennedy’s revamped Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices decided last week to scrap the existing guidelines for MMRV, the combined measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella vaccine.

What the columnists said

Fortunately, the MMRV decision is “meaningless,” said Gwyneth A. Spaeder in National Review. Most doctors, “including me,” already separate the MMR and chicken pox vaccines. What’s more worrisome is that the committee is “questioning the newborn hepatitis B vaccine,” one of the shots Trump complained about. Hep B can be deadly, and the vaccine has drastically reduced infection rates in kids.

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The White House is peddling “junk science,” said Lisa Jarvis in Bloomberg. A few “early studies” suggested acetaminophen might slightly raise autism risk, but more “recent, robust” surveys out of Japan and Sweden found “no link.” And acetaminophen “is the only safe pain reliever a woman can take during pregnancy.” Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again movement holds a “sexist vision of motherhood as a state of endless self-­sacrifice,” said Amanda Marcotte in Salon. MAHA says only slutty, drug-­using moms could possibly pass hep B to their kids, so the vaccine is unnecessary for “good people.” Now it blames autism too on weak, painkiller-­popping women.

“Rising autism rates are worrisome and deserve more study,” said The Wall Street Journal in an editorial, but many diagnoses clearly stem from “broader diagnostic criteria.” We don’t know if prenatal factors play a role, yet we do know that prenatal fevers, a main reason to take Tylenol, can cause congenital defects. Trump is “raising public fear about a useful medicine in a way that could harm maternal and fetal health. Whatever happened to do no harm?”