U.S. President Donald Trump, pictured with U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., linked autism to childhood vaccines and to the use of Tylenol for pregnant women and children, claims not backed by science, last week during a briefing at the White House.Kevin Lamarque/Reuters
Don’t take medical advice from a politician, especially an unhinged President.
That’s the message we should all retain from a disgraceful press conference last week where U.S. President Donald Trump raged about the supposed causes of autism.
“If you’re pregnant, don’t take Tylenol,” he said, suggesting that doing so would harm the fetus. (Tylenol is a brand name for the drug acetaminophen.)
Politicians have a role to play in public health, but it should be to amplify expert advice of experts, not undermine it with cockamamie theories.
Arthur Caplan, a bioethicist at New York University, described Mr. Trump’s presser as “the saddest display of lack of evidence, rumours, recycling old myths, lousy advice, outright lies, and dangerous lies I have ever witnessed by someone in authority.”
It’s unclear why the President went on an anti-Tylenol tirade at this time, other than the fact that his Health Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., had, six months ago, promised to find the cause of autism by September.
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Obviously, that promise was not fulfilled. What we got instead was more anti-vax and anti-pharma rhetoric, and more laughable promises that this administration would end the autism “epidemic.”
On the surface, autism rates in the U.S. have increased 60-fold in the past 30 years, something RFK Jr. has described as “among the most alarming public health developments in history.”
Diagnoses of autism, and autism spectrum disorder, have soared from 1 in 2,500 in the ’80s to 1 in 150 in the ’90s, to 1 in 31 today.
But what’s important to note is that diagnosis criteria have changed dramatically over time.
There aren’t markedly more people with severe autism, the symptoms aren’t different, but our recognition that the condition manifests on a spectrum has changed over time.
The explosion in case numbers has become fodder for conspiracy theories, like the notion that moms taking Tylenol during pregnancy is to blame.
Unfortunately, the President’s ridiculously unscientific advice grabbed the headlines.
Hopefully, expectant mothers will listen instead to expert groups like the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada, who reminded us that taking Tylenol for fever and pain during pregnancy is both safe and appropriate.
In fact, fever poses a much greater risk to a pregnant woman and her fetus than Tylenol does.
Women should not have to suffer pain unnecessarily because the U.S. President wants simplistic explanations for complex problems.
Medical experts fear pregnant patients will heed Trump’s unproven claims about Tylenol
And autism is complex. There is no single cause. But we know there are genetic and environmental factors that increase the risk. And, just as importantly, the condition manifests on a spectrum, from mild to severe.
Let’s be clear: There is no credible evidence that Tylenol – or the hundreds of other drugs that contain acetaminophen – causes autism.
Nor is there any evidence that vaccines are to blame.
Yet, at that same press conference, Mr. Trump repeated the discredited claim that MMR (measles-mumps-rubella) vaccination increases the risk of autism.
He also urged parents to ignore vaccine schedules drafted by pediatric infectious disease experts, and to instead “space out” shots, and get them separately.
The first MMR vaccine is administered roughly around age 12 months, then a second shot in the age 4-6 range. They’re already spaced out.
MMR – often MMRV, when varicella (chickenpox) vaccine is added – is a single, combination vaccine; there are not separate measles, mumps and rubella vaccines available.
Again, Mr. Trump’s comments will do nothing but cause confusion and make parents feel guilty about doing normal, beneficial things like taking pain relievers and getting their kids vaccinated.
There was no small degree of mom-blaming in all the President’s ranting. At one point, he told pregnant women suffering pain to “tough it out” instead of taking Tylenol.
It harkens back to the time, not so long ago, when autism was blamed on “refrigerator Moms” who were not affectionate enough toward their children, presumably because they were working, and not at home barefoot and pregnant.
Adding to that confusion is the fact that, at the same press conference, officials touted the benefits of leucovorin, a folic acid metabolite. Tiny studies have suggested that the drug can alleviate symptoms in people with autism.
Folic acid may play a role in autism, but that doesn’t mean leucovorin is an effective treatment.
It reminds us of Mr. Trump’s other forays into medical advice giving, when he urged people with COVID to inject bleach and to take the horse deworming drug Ivermectin.
Yet another reminder that listening to his advice is, at best, a prescription for misery.