President Donald Trump has taken the extraordinary step of giving women medical advice, directing them on how they should handle hepatitis B, treat their pregnancy pain and use vaccines for their children.
In a wild press conference claiming that Tylenol may be linked to autism, the president said that he believed children should not receive the hepatitis B vaccine until they are 12–undercutting the longstanding recommendation to give a shot to infants to prevent chronic liver infections and damage.
Trump also declared that the MMR vaccine, which is used to guard against measles, mumps, and rubella, should be administered separately, “based on what I feel.”
And he insisted that women should “fight like hell” not take Tylenol during pregnancy or give it to their babies, declaring they should only do so if there was no other way to get through the pain.
“That would mean you just can’t tough it out, so that’s up to you and your doctor,” he said. “I just want to say it like it is: don’t take Tylenol. Don’t take it. Fight like hell not to take it.”
Trump: “The MMR I think should be taken separately. This is based on what I feel.” pic.twitter.com/g6yIJbUkWY
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 22, 2025
The press conference was not the first time that the president has dished out medical advice in the absence of rigorous science.
As COVID ravaged the U.S. during Trump’s first administration, the president was lambasted by health experts for suggesting that top health officials should study the injection of bleach into the human body as a means of fighting the disease.
He also suggested that exposing patients to UV light could potentially treat COVID.
But the autism debate is a particularly sensitive one for the second term administration, whose Health Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is a known conspiracy theorist and vaccine skeptic.
Kennedy has come under fire in recent months for his radical views and his contentious overhaul of the Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention.
“What he’s doing is not scientifically sound,” said National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases Director, Dan Jernigan, who was one of several former CDC bosses who recently resigned in disgust.
“I’m absolutely speechless. Like, wow. This is the worst ‘health’ press conference I maybe have ever seen, and I watched every one during Covid,” Craig Spencer MD wrote on X. “How are we doing this again???”
During his press conference, Trump also falsely claimed that babies were “loaded up” with as many as 80 vaccines at once.
“They pump so much stuff into babies, it’s a disgrace,” he said.
But his advice about hepatitis B is contentious because the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee has recommended the hepatitis B vaccine for all infants since 1991.
If a woman tests positive for hepatitis B during her screening, doctors will generally give her baby hepatitis B immune globulin, an injection that helps provide antibodies. This, along with the vaccine, can prevent transmission.
But Trump declared this wasn’t necessary, telling reporters: “Hepatitis B is sexually transmitted. There’s no reason to give a baby that’s almost just born hepatitis B. So I would, say, wait till the baby is 12 years-old and formed.”
The administration’s view that Tylenol use in pregnancy could increase the risk of autism comes despite studies not showing a direct cause and effect.
Some research points to a possible link, but major medical groups have evaluated the studies and continue to recommend acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, as the safest painkiller during pregnancy.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists slammed Trump’s announcement as “irresponsible” and “highly unsettling.”
Nonetheless, the Food and Drug Administration will now begin notifying physicians that it is “strongly recommending that women limit Tylenol use during pregnancy unless medically necessary.”
The post Trump Plays Doctor With Wild Advice on Vaccines for Kids appeared first on The Daily Beast.
