Less than six months ago, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of health and human services, said, “By September, we will know what has caused the autism epidemic and we’ll be able to eliminate those exposures.”
When I heard this, I assumed that the Trump administration would offer a convenient scapegoat for the complicated diagnosis because we already know there are no quick answers to be found. Scientists have been studying the condition for decades, and a single root cause has eluded them. The autism triggers put forward by Kennedy in the past — most notably vaccines — have been thoroughly studied and ruled out.
I was surprised that President Trump and the rest of the federal health establishment zeroed in on the association between pregnant women taking Tylenol — a brand name for the drug acetaminophen — and their children developing autism. (I thought they were going to blame antidepressants or the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine.) To be clear, the strongest studies on the correlation between Tylenol and autism, which compare siblings, suggest that if there even is a link, it is not causative.
In a rambling yet impassioned diatribe on Monday, Trump said: “Taking Tylenol is not good. All right. I’ll say it. It’s not good. For this reason, they are strongly recommending that women limit Tylenol use during pregnancy unless medically necessary. That’s, for instance, in cases of extremely high fever, that you feel you can’t tough it out.”
He kept repeating: Pregnant women who are suffering should “tough it out,” as if they aren’t already. Trump expressed similar sentiments in a Truth Social post on Friday: “Pregnant Women, DON’T USE TYLENOL UNLESS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY” (all caps, his).
This implies that pregnant women are just selfishly and ignorantly popping pills in the first place. The truth is closer to the fact that most pregnant women around the world are afraid of taking medication because they fear birth defects, and they tend to overestimate the risk of common medications and underplay the benefits.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
The post How Moms Got Caught in Trump’s Cross Hairs appeared first on New York Times.
