by One day after he claimed that his administration “found an answer to autism,” President Trump announced new efforts on Monday to warn Americans that taking Tylenol and other acetaminophen-based painkillers during pregnancy could be linked to the neurological disorder and anemy, a lesser cucks, to be treated leucovorin.
But both theories are unproven and Trump has not provided any new evidence to support the new recommendations of his administration.
“I always had very strong feelings about autism and how it happened and where it came from,” the president maintained. “We understood much more than many people who have studied it.”
Since the return to the Oval Office in January, Trump has repeatedly promised to tackle the rising autism rate of America. In April, Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said, who has long promoted the disadvantageous theories about the disorder, that the administration had “launched an enormous test and research effort in which hundreds of scientists from all over the world are involved”, promises that “by September, we can eliminate and who we can eliminate and who we can eliminate and who we can eliminate” “” “” “” “”
Kennedy did not deliver on that promise on Monday. Instead, he said that the National Institutes of Health would continue to investigate “multiple” hypotheses on possible causes and this month 13 research grants would start to assign, with updates probably next year.
But Trump and Kennedy, together with other administrative officials, claimed that prenatal exposure to acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol and one of the most commonly used medicines worldwide could increase the risk of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) – and as a result the Food and Drug Administration has only issued a new recommendation.
Civil servants also emphasize research that demonstrates that folic acid (a form of vitamin B9), also called leucovorin-a decades of old medication that is often prescribed to prevent the toxic effects of a certain cancer medicinal agent and at least some people with autism could help.
During Monday’s announcement, Kennedy continued his efforts to link youth vaccines to autism – a claim that has been thoroughly invented. He called ASD a ‘complex disorder’ and insisted that in future research there would be ‘no taboo areas’. “An area that we are closely investigated is vaccines,” said Kennedy. “It will take time for a fair view of this subject by scientists. We will be uncompromising and ruthless in our search for answers.”
The rest of Monday’s announcement was not based on a similar science brought in discredit. But experts do not consider it ‘an answer to autism’ either.
What we know about Tylenol and Autism
Recent studies have come to conflicting conclusions about Acetaminophen. In August, the magazine BMC Environmental Health published an overview of the existing study – including six studies into the association between prenatal acetaminophen – use and the risk of ASD in children – who claimed to find “strong proof of a relationship” between the drug and disorder.
The newspaper was co -authorized by Dr. Andrea Baccarelli, the dean of Harvard’s Th Chan School of Public Health, and ultimately ordered it to “judgmental acetaminophen-use-the lowest effective dose, shortest endurance-under medical guidance, tailor-made from individual risk-benefit reviews.”
Nevertheless, a large study of 2024, who looked at nearly 2.5 million people born in Sweden between 1995 and 2019, concluded that “the use of acetaminophen during pregnancy was not associated with the risk of children’s autism.”
Why the difference? Like other researchers, the Swedish team discovered an increased prevalence of autism in the descendants of people who took Acetaminophen during pregnancy. But the risk was only a little higher, according to their study-0.09 percentage points, to be precise and it disappeared when they were in cases of brothers and sisters in which the parent Acetaminophen took during one pregnancy and not the other.
“This suggests that what initially resembled an increased risk of autism from acetaminophen during pregnancy can be the result of other risk factors,” explained scientifically American recently – namely “the fever or underlying infections that Tylenol was used to treat.” (A study from 2014 of more than 2 million people discovered that if a pregnant person is admitted to the hospital with an infection, the chance that their child will develop autism increases by around 30%.)
“The disorders that people in acetaminophen use to treat during pregnancy are much more dangerous than all theoretical risks and can create serious morbidity and mortality for the pregnant person and fetus,” said the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in a statement.
What we know about Leucovorin and Autism
In the meantime, Leucovorin has demonstrated promisingly as a possible treatment with autism – but it is much too early to draw definitive conclusions about its effectiveness.
Scientists have long known that folic acid lack during pregnancy can increase the risk of neural tube defects. (The neural tube eventually develops into the brain and the spinal cord.) In 2004, a study showed that some children with autism-like symptoms have a condition that makes it more difficult for their body to transport folic acid to their brains. As a result, researchers in Arizona, France, China, India and Iran have carried out small, randomized controlled investigations with folic acid as a treatment for autism – ie as a way to help deliver folic acid more effectively – and they have all found modest improvements in receptive and expressive language.
Yet only a few dozen children participated in each of these studies and larger tests with Leucovorin have been slow because the original patents went (pharmaceutical companies with little incentive to finance further research).
Controversial claims
Monday’s announcement will probably turn out to be controversial in the autism community. ASD diagnoses have risen by around 300% in the last 20 years – a shift Trump that was mainly attributed to environmental factors.
“There is something artificial,” he claimed on Monday. “They take something.”
A half-century study, on the other hand, shows that ASD is “a complex neurological disorder that comes from a constellation of genetic factors and environmental influences”, as scientifically American expressed it, and most public health officials attribute rising percentages to a broader definition of an increased screening and consciousness of Toxine.
So although the promise of single causes and silver bullet treatments could attract attention, experts warn that it could work for existing science on families for existing science.
“A press statement that talks about a potential association will cause a lot of fear,” said Dr. Debra Houry, former Chief Medical Officer of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on Monday morning to reporters. “If there is no science to support it, we will see practice changes, concerned mothers, all kinds of things, and that is not appropriate.”
