The president’s autism announcement is based on highly disputed science—and also, in his words, “what I feel.”
At a press conference today, President Donald Trump dispensed one clear piece of medical advice to American parents in a rambling, repetitive monologue: Don’t. Take. Tylenol. He told pregnant women that they could help keep their children safe from autism by not taking the drug whenever they could avoid it (“fight like hell,” he instructed). He advised parents not to give Tylenol to their young children. He denounced giving the hepatitis B vaccine to infants and suggested that parents space out their children’s immunization schedule. (“They pump so much stuff into those beautiful little babies, it’s a disgrace,” he said.) He declared that children ideally should be given the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccines separately, though such individual shots are not available in the United States. “This is based on what I feel,” the president said.
Trump had been hinting at his big announcement for weeks, and it was evident that he wasn’t interested in making sure the contents had passed through the normal research process. “I don’t want to wait any longer. We don’t need anything more. And if it’s wrong—it’s not going to be wrong, but—if it is wrong, it’s fine. We have to do it,” Trump told the audience at a dinner for the American Cornerstone Institute on Saturday. Today, instead of opting for measured guidance, or urging additional research, Trump borrowed a strategy from his health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: pushing ahead with a sensational conclusion based on a handful of disputed studies.
Researchers have been studying possible causes of autism for decades, and they generally dismiss singling out one culprit like a drug or a vaccine ingredient. (Instead, the consensus is that genetics play a large role, along with an array of environmental factors.) Some studies have found a possible association between acetaminophen and neurodevelopmental disorders. In 2015, the FDA issued a notice about a possible link between prenatal Tylenol use and ADHD, though it also mentioned that the cited studies had design flaws. Last month, Andrea Baccarelli, the dean of Harvard’s school of public health, published a review of other studies in which he and his co-authors concluded that acetaminophen use during pregnancy is associated with neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism, and that pregnant women should be advised to limit their use of the drug.
