Justin Sullivan | Getty Images President Donald Trump on Monday linked rising rates of autism to the use of acetaminophen, the active ingr...
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| Justin Sullivan|Getty Images |
President Donald Trump on Monday linked rising rates of autism to the use of acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol.
Speaking alongside Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Trump said the Food and Drug Administration will be notifying doctors of the link and advising women to limit their use unless they have a fever.
“If you can't tough it out, if you can't do it, that's what you're gonna have to do. You'll take a Tylenol, but it'll be very sparingly,” Trump said. “I think you shouldn't take it.”
He added that it would also be ideal for mothers to space out childhood vaccines over a period of four or five appointments instead of “one visit where they pump the baby.”
Kennedy said the FDA’s decision is in response to “clinical and laboratory studies that suggest a potential association between acetaminophen used during pregnancy and adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes.” He said contrary studies that showed no association were also evaluated.
HHS will launch a nationwide public service campaign to inform families and protect public health, Kennedy said.
He added that the FDA recognizes acetaminophen is often the only remedy for fevers or pain during pregnancy, noting that HHS will encourage doctors to exercise their best judgment in recommending it.
Monday’s announcement comes after Trump teased the announcement on Sunday afternoon, telling reporters the same day that he thought acetaminophen was a “very big factor.”
The Wall Street Journal was the first to report the plan to link autism and Tylenol earlier this month. The Washington Post reported that officials at HHS have been reviewing past research that suggested a possible link between the use of the painkiller during early pregnancy and an increased risk of autism in children.
Acetaminophen is one of the few options that have been cleared for use during pregnancy, though doctors advise against long-term use. Scientists have studied a potential connection, but the results have been inconclusive, with many rejecting the idea of a link.
A study done on acetaminophen use during pregnancy in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2024 found no link between the use of the painkiller and a child’s risk of autism, ADHD or intellectual disability.
The White House also announced it will move to establish leucovorin, also known as folinic acid, as a potential treatment for the developmental disorder. Leucovorin is often used to prevent the side effects of a chemotherapy drug known as methotrexate that is given in high doses.
Early double-blind, placebo-controlled trials involving leucovorin and children with autism showed potential to improve some symptoms of autism. But doctors say the link is still in its early phases.
Kennedy said peer-reviewed literature showed that up to 60% of folate-deficient children with an autism diagnosis had improved verbal communications when given leucovorin.
Trump also said during the press conference that the NIH will be announcing 13 major grant awards from the autism data science initiatives. The effort is separate from a larger NIH report investigating autism research.
Monday’s report is the latest in an ongoing push by Kennedy and top health officials to find a cause for the rising rates of autism. Data from the CDC has shown that autism diagnoses have increased significantly since 2000, showing that one in 31 eight-year-old children receives a diagnosis.
Researchers say the increase is primarily due to a broadened definition of Autism Spectrum Disorder (meaning more people are included that weren’t previously) and increased parental awareness and medical screenings. In other words, the increase could be about looking more thoroughly rather than having more cases.
Kennedy, however, has made finding a cause for autism one of his major initiatives, resurfacing a previously disproven theory that vaccines cause it and creating new resources to find the link.
He pledged to find the cause by September, a claim many in the scientific community said was unlikely given the amount of heavy lifting involved. The topic was then briefly mentioned in the Make America Healthy Again Commission’s report that came out just weeks ago.
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