Trump urges pregnant women to not take paracetamol
WASHINGTON—President Donald Trump on Monday urged women not to take paracetamol as he announced a wide-ranging effort to study the causes of autism.
“Don’t take Tylenol,” Trump instructed pregnant women around a dozen times during a White House news conference, referring to the drug known generically as acetaminophen in the United States, Canada and Japan and paracetamol in most of the world.
He also urged mothers not to give their infants the drug.
The Associated Press (AP) claimed that Trump “used the platform of the presidency to promote unproven and in some cases discredited ties between Tylenol, vaccines and autism.”
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) however has announced that it had “initiated the process for a label change for [paracetamol] (Tylenol and similar products) to reflect evidence suggesting that the use of [paracetamol] by pregnant women may be associated with an increased risk of neurological conditions such as autism and ADHD in children.”
Furthermore, the agency issued a letter to physicians nationwide alerting them of the risk.
The AP said that Trump’s “rambling announcement … appeared to rely on existing studies rather than significant new research.
‘Correlation’
But the FDA in a statement last Sept. 22 said, “Evidence in recent years has suggested a correlation between [paracetamol] use during pregnancy and subsequent diagnosis of conditions like autism and ADHD.”
It added that “Multiple large-scale cohort studies, including the Nurses’ Health Study II and the Boston Birth Cohort, find this association.”
The agency stressed that “some studies have described that the risk may be most pronounced when [paracetamol] is taken chronically throughout pregnancy.”
“Some studies have raised the possibility that taking [paracetamol] during pregnancy might increase the risk of autism—but many others haven’t found that concern, said autism expert David Mandell of the University of Pennsylvania.
One challenge is that it’s hard to disentangle the effects of Tylenol use from the effects of high fevers during pregnancy. Fevers, especially in the first trimester, can increase the risk for miscarriages, preterm birth and other problems, according to the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine.
The Nurses’ Health Study II (2019) said on the PubMed website that “Our findings corroborate those of prior reports suggesting that prenatal [paracetamol] exposure may influence neurodevelopment.”
Neurodevelopmental risk
The Boston Birth Cohort study meanwhile said that its findings “support previous studies regarding the association between prenatal and perinatal [paracetamol] exposure and childhood neurodevelopmental risk and warrant additional investigations.”
Responding to Trump’s warnings, the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine said they still recommend Tylenol as an option to treat fever and pain during pregnancy.
The president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said on Monday that suggestions that Tylenol use in pregnancy causes autism are “irresponsible when considering the harmful and confusing message they send to pregnant patients.”
Tylenol maker Kenvue disputed any link between the drug and autism on Monday and said in a statement that if pregnant mothers don’t use Tylenol when in need, they could face a dangerous choice between suffering fevers or using riskier painkiller alternatives.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. meanwhile announced during the news conference that at Trump’s urging, he was launching a new all-agency effort to uncover all the factors that could be contributing to autism, a question scientists have been researching for decades.
FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary also took the stage to announce it was taking the first steps to try to approve a folic acid metabolite called leucovorin as a treatment option for patients believed to have low levels of folate in the brain. That may include some people with autism.
