Ahead of a White House press conference on autism in September, Donald Trump made a deliberate effort to hype the information he said he was eager to share. The president boasted the week before the event that he was poised to deliver an announcement that was “very, very big.” A day later, he added that the information he was ready to share was “so big.”
Those who tuned in to the White House announcement, however, quickly learned otherwise. Trump, standing alongside Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., instead stood at a podium and said, “Don’t take Tylenol” — 11 times.
Paul Offit, a pediatrician and vaccine researcher at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told The Washington Post after the event, “That was the most dangerously irresponsible press conference in the realm of public health in American history.”
Undeterred, the president kept going in the weeks and months that followed, publishing an online screed to his social media platform two weeks ago that began, “PREGNANT WOMEN, DON’T USE TYLENOL UNLESS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY, DON’T GIVE TYLENOL TO YOUR YOUNG CHILD FOR VIRTUALLY ANY REASON.”
It remains a mystery why Mr. “Inject Disinfectants” believes that he has the credibility and expertise needed to give Americans guidance on matters of public health, but for those interested in evidence, The New York Times reported over the weekend:
A scientific review of 43 studies on acetaminophen use during pregnancy concluded that there was no evidence that the painkiller increased the risk of autism or other neurodevelopmental disorders.
‘We found no clinically important increase in the risk of autism, A.D.H.D. or intellectual disability,’ Dr. Asma Khalil, a professor of obstetrics and maternal fetal medicine at St. George’s Hospital, University of London, and the lead author of the report, said at a news briefing. The study was published on Friday in the British medical journal The Lancet.
Khalil added that acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, remains “the first-line treatment that we would recommend if the pregnant women have pain or fever in pregnancy.”
Confronted with this scientific research, the White House had little choice but to acknowledge reality. No, I’m just kidding. Trump and his team, at least so far, have ignored the latest findings, which dovetail with other recent research on the same subject. The next time the president starts offering advice on over-the-counter pain treatments, however, keep this in mind. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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