Trump and RFK Jr. blame Tylenol for autism in a new report, but the experts grow back

President Donald Trump and the US Secretary for Health and Social Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. officially found scapegoats to blame for the increase in reported autism cases. In a report published today by HHS, the government has linked the use of acetaminophen (better known as Tylenol) during pregnancy in the neurodevelopmental state.

Trump made this announcement at a press conference on Tuesday afternoon, although the Wall Street Journal was the first to announce the news on the conclusions expected earlier this month. The report distinguishes the use of acetaminophen and the deficiency in folate as causes possible autism and even suggests a specific drug used to improve these – LaycoOvorine – as a potential autism treatment.

“Taking Tylenol is not good – I will say it, it’s not good,” said Trump resolutely at the conference, although he admits that there are no free over the counter analgesics. RFK Jr., on the other hand, said that the FDA would take official measures to add a security label to acetaminopène products warning its supposed risk of autism, while HHS will lead a public health campaign to highlight the link.

External experts are however doubtful on the report, arguing that its conclusions are based on weak and mixed evidence, at best.

Why tylenol is a red herring

The largest red flag surrounding this report is perhaps the grand language of Trump and RFK Jr. The two men sang in search of the singular cause or the response to the autistic spectrum disorder.

“I have been waiting for this meeting for 20 years.” Trump said at the press conference. “And it’s not that everything is 100% or known. But I think we have made a lot of progress. ”

Real scientists, however, have long known that autism has generally been triggered by a mixture of genetic and environmental influences – influences that are not easily untangled.

The rate of autism cases reported in children has increased over time. Many experts have argued that a greater awareness of the symptoms of autism and wider criteria in the way autism is diagnosed are largely responsible for this increase. But Trump, RFK Jr. and others refused to accept this conclusion and rather sought to point a finger on an external culprit in the environment.

Certain environmental factors could contribute slightly to more cases of autism, such as people with children at a more advanced age than before, but there are good reasons why Tylenol is unlikely to be a good villain for the Trump administration to blame.

“There is nothing new here. They examine existing literature, and they hurt it,” David Mandell, autistic researcher and psychiatric epidemiologist at the University of Pennsylvania told Gizmodo. Mandell is also a member of the executive committee of the Coalition of Autism Scientists, an organization which trained in response to the initial announcement of RFK Jr. earlier in April that he would discover the causes of autism.

Some studies, including a review published last month, have suggested that prenatal acetaminophen exposure could increase the risk of several neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism and deficit / hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Above all, however, many other studies have not done so, including studies that have tried to take into account the weaknesses of the data analyzed.

In a study in 2024, researchers in Sweden and the United States examined the results for the health of all children born in Sweden between 1995 and 2019. At first, they found a small risk of potential autism in children whose mothers declared to use acetaminophen during pregnancy. This signal has completely disappeared when they did not focus on the comparison of brothers and sisters to each other. Since brothers and sisters share many of these influences, this type of study can better isolate and reduce potential noise in data that could lead researchers on the wrong track.

Indeed, on the basis of their results, the researchers concluded that the link between Tylenol and disorders like autism was probably a “non -causal association”.

Certain research has also suggested that the use of acetaminophen in pregnant women in the United States and Canada has actually decreased slightly since the early 2000s, Note Mandell, the opposite trend that you expect to see if the medication really led higher autism rates.

In particular, other countries have already tried to distance themselves from the new American position on Tylenol. Health regulators of the United Kingdom have today published a declaration reassuring its residents that the use of acetaminophen (called paracetamol in Europe) during pregnancy is sure and that there is no evidence that it causes autism.

The tenuous case for leucuvorine

The link between Folate / Leucuvorine deficiency and autism in the new report is built on a less trembling, but always tenuous land.

Folate is also known as vitamin B9, and pregnant women need it to support their child’s health during pregnancy and prevent certain congenital malformations. This is why women are recommended to regularly take folic acid supplements (another form of vitamin B9 which breaks down into folate into the body) during pregnancy.

Research has suggested that some autistic children also tend to have trouble moving the folate in their brain (usually due to an autoimmune problem), which then causes a condition called brain folate deficiency (CFD). Above all, people can have a CFD but always have normal folate levels in their blood. Leucuvorine is a different form of vitamin B9 (folinic acid) which is most often used to counter the toxic effects of certain chemotherapy treatments. But the medication can also bypass the typical method of the administration of the folate, which means that it can increase folate levels in the brain and treat CFDs.

Based on these first research, some scientists have been enthusiastic about the potential of Leucuvorine to help children with autism and CFD. Some clinical trials have given promising results, while some parents said Leucovorine considerably improved the communication and development skills of their children. That said, the tests have been small to date, the largest so far involving 80 children (a similar trial of 80 children should be completed next year) and the smallest having only 19 children.

Leucuvorine could absolutely prove to be an effective treatment for the subset of children who seem to have both conditions, but Mandell is worried about the Trump administration which rushes into the scientific process in the hope of obtaining good publicity. When I asked if the administration puts the cart in front of the horse with Leucovorine, Mandell replied: “We don’t even know if there is still a cart.”

Mandell also warns that researchers and the autism community have had their hopes raised – only to be destroyed – at the beginning, promising studies in the past. More than 20 years ago, he notes, many was made on the potential of secretin, a neurotransmitter that helps regulate digestion, to treat the symptoms of autism. Case relationships and small trials seemed to show a positive effect of secretin, only for several larger trials to find anything like this later.

This edifying story did not prevent Trump and Kennedy from traveling quickly to promote and even approve leucuvorine for autism via the FDA. The FDA publishes a notice of federal register describing an update of label for Leucovorine, according to HHS, which will officially authorize a version of drug prescription for the treatment of autism.

“If folinic acid obtains an indication of the FDA for autism, it would be the drug with the weakest evidence in support of its indication of the FDA to any medication I can think of,” said Mandell.

Mandell and others also noted that some close groups of Trump World could potentially benefit generously if leucuvorine was popularized as autistic treatment. Mehmet Oz, the current administrator of Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, was previously advisor to the Iherb supplement company, for example, who has several lists of folinic acid supplements on his website. Oz himself is committed to resigning from the company and giving in its limited Iherb action units by becoming CMS chief.

The future of autism research

The government’s approach to autism and research is now taking shape. That said, under the Trump administration, the National Institutes of Health have in fact reduced funding this year of its existing autism efforts, either because of negligence, or within the framework of a greater crusade to demolish anything in the government which even recognizes racial and other disparities to be too “awake”.

Mandell and other experts fear that the new concentration of the administration on acetaminophen and leucuvorine will only lead to more wasted resources and to fear an important intervention. Compared to aspirin and NSAIDs, Tylenol is considered to be a safer pain and fever lift for pregnant women, and it is estimated that more than half of women around the world take the medication at least during pregnancy.

Unfortunately, the scapegoat may not yet be finished.

The HHS report does not focus on vaccination, that Kennedy, other supporters of anti -salaries, and even Trump have long tried to blame the rates of autism. In -depth scientific research over the years has and continue to find such a link between vaccines or their ingredients and autism. But HHS would have hired well -known anti -vaxxer, David Geier, to conduct a new study reviewed this demystified connection.

During the press conference, Trump tried to relaunch the case to separate the vaccine against the combination of measles, mumps and rubella (a common goal of the anti-vaccine movement), arguing that taking too many vaccines at the same time is dangerous for people’s health, an assertion with little support. RFK Jr. also clearly indicated at the conference that HHS investigates the alleged link between vaccines and autism, which in a way framed it to “believe all women” – referring to mothers who believe that vaccines cause autism.

Acetaminophen is perhaps the first false Bogeyman that Trump and Kennedy will officially blame autism, but it seems unlikely that it is the last.