Newspapers and articles respond to Trump Administration’s “Don’t take Tylenol” statement
Photo courtesy of Austin Kirk/Wikimedia Commons
In an announcement on Monday, Sept. 22, President Trump issued the statement “Don’t take Tylenol” several times, due to the suggestion that acetaminophen, the primary and active ingredient in Tylenol medications, can cause autism spectrum disorder. The same day, the FDA issued a warning label on all acetaminophen products. What the administration and FDA seemingly overlooked was that the connection between acetaminophen and autism is unclear and, in some studies, found to be nonexistent. Several medical journals and news sources have delved into this question over the years, with some doing so recently as a direct response to the administration’s claim.
Judette Louis, dean of the Old Dominion University School of Medicine, and obstetrician, sat down with members of the NPR news team to discuss the use of Tylenol during pregnancy. “I think the mistake that people make is that they say, oh, there's a harm to the use of a medication, but they don't compare it to the harm of not treating the condition that you were using the medication for,” she explained .
Louis stated that a high fever during the first trimester may lead to birth defects, which might explain a correlation between autism and Tylenol usage. A report by Christoph Bührer et al. in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences (MPDI), published Oct. 15 2022, supports her claim, affirming that studies indicate a connection between “prolonged intrauterine exposure of paracetamol to ADHD and ASD [autism spectrum disorder] in offspring, while there is little evidence that paracetamol taken during pregnancy is associated with brain function and development in a more general sense.”
Louis voiced that studies which went in-depth, touching on family history and siblinghood, found no association between Tylenol and autism. There is some further evidence to this being the case. A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), by Viktor H. Ahlqvist, et al., which was approved to be published in February of 2024, analyzed autism and ADHD in children of mothers who took Tylenol during pregnancy. The writers reported that, while it was found that there was an association between ADHD and the use of acetaminophen during pregnancy, one of two studies that analyzed siblings alongside one another did not find said association.
The Trump Administration’s message, while proven to be mainly false by scientists, has received dramatically mixed responses from those with family members who have autism, and autistic people themselves. Laura Ungar, a writer at AP News, reported on the responses of such groups of people. One man whose twins have autism expressed hope, since he had not witnessed autism be mentioned by high-ranking government officials until Monday. Any attempt to take on the complex topic is important to him.. On the contrary, a woman with autism felt that the Trump administration’s statement villainized the condition, as they described it as a “horrible, horrible crisis.”.
Dr. Noa Sterling is an OB-GYN who stated in the same AP News article that there is a societal “narrative” that pregnant women should be blamed for what they chose to ingest and do during pregnancy, considering the chances that they caused their children’s conditions. The government is in place to enact policies, but is not expected to have full scientific knowledge right away. President Trump’s statement on Monday has already been perceived by some as “villainizing” mothers of autistic children and pregnant women. The scientific facts may reveal a different story that villainizes neither group and indicates that Tylenol is safe to consume while pregnant.