The parent company for Tylenol, the over-the-counter pain reliever, this week sought to clarify a 2017 social media post in which it said that it did not recommend taking “any of our products while pregnant.”
The Trump administration highlighted the old post on Wednesday, two days after its announcement this week urging pregnant women to avoid taking Tylenol, claiming without new evidence that it was a cause of autism.
The Department of Health and Human Services’s X account resurfaced the post, writing, “No caption needed.” The White House’s account also shared the old post.
Tylenol’s parent company, Kenvue, said in a statement on Wednesday that the tweet had been posted eight years ago in response to a customer. The response was “incomplete and did not address our full guidance on the safe use of Tylenol which has not changed: “Acetaminophen is the safest pain reliever option for pregnant women as needed throughout their entire pregnancy,” Kenvue said, referring to the active ingredient in Tylenol.
The statement added: “We recommend pregnant women do not take any over-the-counter medication, including acetaminophen, without talking to their doctor first.”
President Trump and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Monday warned against pregnant women taking acetaminophen at a White House news conference, citing unproven claims that the drug could cause autism.
“Don’t take Tylenol,” Mr. Trump said. “Fight like hell not to take it,” he said, warning that if someone did take it, “That, you’ll have to work out with yourself.” He repeatedly insisted there was “no downside” to avoiding it, except in rare instances, such as a dangerously high fever.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists said on Monday that the suggestion that acetaminophen use in pregnancy caused autism was not backed by reliable data and “dangerously simplifies the many and complex causes of neurologic challenges in children.”
“In more than two decades of research on the use of acetaminophen in pregnancy, not a single reputable study has successfully concluded that the use of acetaminophen in any trimester of pregnancy causes neurodevelopmental disorders in children,” said Steven J. Fleischman, the president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, in a statement. He added, “Acetaminophen is one of the few options available to pregnant patients to treat pain and fever, which can be harmful to pregnant people when left untreated.”
Decades of studies have shown a strong association between fevers early in pregnancy and a specific set of birth defects, including neural tube defects, some heart defects and cleft palates, said Dr. Eric Benner, a neonatologist at Duke University.
Jenny Gross is a reporter for The Times covering breaking news and other topics.
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