Donald Trump used Charlie Kirk’s memorial to announce what he called a medical breakthrough, claiming Tylenol causes autism. With no credible science behind it, experts warn the rhetoric is dangerous, misleading and puts pregnant women at risk.
In today’s episode of America is on fire, Donald Trump announced at the Charlie Kirk memorial in Arizona what he described as “one of the biggest announcement[s] … medically, I think, in the history of [America].”
It had literally nothing to do with the man they were all gathered there to mourn, but in investigations spearheaded by Robert F. Kennedy Jr, the Trump administration purports to have found a cure for autism.
The US President described the alleged dangers of the drug Acetaminophen, more commonly known in the USA as Tylenol and around the rest of the world as Paracetamol. Well, he only described the dangers after a few attempts at trying to say ‘Acetaminophen’ correctly.
Apparently, American women need to stop taking Tylenol because it causes their children to be born with autism. Yes, you read that right: a drug invented in 1955 has been causing autism in people since the dawn of time.
RFK Jr and Trump have been quoted describing the rise of young people being diagnosed with autism or Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) as an ‘epidemic’. They technically aren’t wrong; more children than ever are being diagnosed with autism, but they’re not right either. The reason more people are being diagnosed with it is because we are finally starting to understand what it is.
Autism or ASD is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects social communication, repetitive behaviours or interests, and sensory experiences. Due to better screening practices, early detection, greater acceptance of diagnoses and a broadened diagnostic spectrum, we are seeing lots of children, young people and adults being diagnosed with it.
So, yes, technically, there is a rise in the number of children having autism, but it’s not because more people have autism; it’s just because we have a name for it.
Where did this claim come from? And is it true?
At the presser, Trump and RFK Jr didn’t present new research. They cited older observational studies and a recent review instead, name-checking the Boston Birth Cohort and the Nurses’ Health Study, plus a Mount Sinai–Harvard review that frames the literature as “pointing to an association.” They even floated the idea that the Amish have “essentially no autism,” without offering a reliable source. None of this meets the bar for causation, and major public health bodies have been clear that the evidence is inconsistent at best.
Actually, there isn’t a single credible study backing up Trump’s claim. In fact, the most robust research we do have says the opposite. A huge Swedish study published in 2024 looked at 2.4 million births (even comparing siblings with and without prenatal exposure) and found no association between paracetamol use in pregnancy and autism, ADHD, or intellectual disability.
Medical professionals across the world have been quick to call Trump’s announcement irresponsible and dangerous. Organisations like the American College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, alongside public health experts, have stressed that paracetamol remains the safest painkiller for pregnant women. Even Tylenol’s own manufacturer pointed out that scaring people off the drug could push them towards far riskier alternatives.
This isn’t the first time that something has been incorrectly linked to autism. In the 1990s, a British gastroenterologist named Andrew Wakefield and some of his colleagues published a paper suggesting a link between the MMR vaccine (measles, mumps, rubella) and autism, based on a study of just 12 children.
Despite this study being debunked and a further three studies with a much larger study group proving absolutely no link between the two things, it didn’t stop the media from running with the story. The fear-mongering was so severe that vaccination rates dropped 10% in the UK and measles outbreaks broke out in areas where it had been mostly eliminated.
This anti-vaccine mentality still survives to this day, with many not choosing to get their children vaccinated against easily preventable childhood diseases for fear of giving their child autism.
What’s all this got to do with Tylenol though?
Well, everything.
Trump’s claims that Tylenol is dangerous to expectant mothers are just plain wrong, and even more dangerous than he claims the drug to be.
While the drug is a painkiller, it can also help reduce fever in expectant mothers, and fever during pregnancy can have potentially fatal consequences like heart conditions, abdominal wall defects and neural tube defects where the brain and spinal cord do not form properly.
Pain and fever in expectant mothers have also been linked to pre-term birth and miscarriages.
Up until yesterday, Tylenol was seen as the only ‘safe’ painkiller to take during pregnancy, and that’s still the case everywhere but the USA. In the UK, official NHS guidelines say: “Paracetamol is the first choice of painkiller if you’re pregnant. It’s commonly taken during pregnancy and does not harm your baby.”
So, why is Trump saying this?
It’s no secret that the Trump administration wants American women to make more babies. Specifically, white, young, conservative, attractive women. The move towards the ‘trad wife’ mentality has meant that the MAGA crowd are pushing for lots of babies to be born the old-fashioned way: unmedicated and at home. What they seem to forget is that people had loads of kids back then because the majority wouldn’t survive until adulthood.
This strange eugenics-y mentality means that the MAGA crowd are begging young women to have babies, but only within a (white) marriage, only unmedicated, and only raised to be a God-fearing All-American Trump lover.
Basically, if you do get pregnant and carry your baby to term, you will have to suffer the worst pain of your life because a man with brain worms told you so, or you can self-administer Tylenol, and if God forbid, something awful happens, then you could be jailed for ‘having an abortion’.
It’s a lose-lose situation and perfectly fits into the news clips compilation at the start of an apocalypse movie that the USA seems to be going for at the moment.
If you manage to have a baby in America, don’t expect to be safe after the nine-month gestation period is over, either, because when you send your precious angel off to school and they end up involved in one of the USA’s 300 school shootings a year, don’t worry.
As Charlie Kirk himself said, the man whose memorial sparked this seemingly random comment: “I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.”
According to a White House statement from earlier this year: “President Donald J. Trump knows America’s children are our future, and he’ll never stop fighting for their right to a healthy, productive upbringing and childhood.”
I only have one thing to say to that: liar, liar pants on fire.
