President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Monday what they called “historic steps” in a plan to fight the growth of autism across America.
Trump and his team unveiled a federal report to the public that links prenatal acetaminophen use – the main ingredient in Tylenol – to increased odds of autism in children.
Speaking from the White House alongside NIH Director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, FDA Commissioner Dr. Marty Makary, and other senior officials, Trump said: “The meteoric rise in autism is among the most alarming public health developments in history. There’s never been anything like this. Just a few decades ago, one in 10,000 children had autism… I would say that’s probably 18 years ago, and now it’s one in 31, but in some areas, it’s much worse than that, if you can believe it…I gave numbers yesterday for boys, it’s one in 12.”
Trump would go on to urge all pregnant women to avoid taking acetaminophen, saying, “All pregnant women should talk to their doctors for more information about limiting the use of this medication while pregnant. So ideally, you don’t take it at all.”
The President also raised concerns about childhood vaccination schedules and their interaction with acetaminophen.
“They pump so much stuff into those beautiful little babies. It’s a disgrace… it looks like they’re pumping into a horse. You have a little child, little fragile child, and you get a vat of 80 different vaccines…So ideally, a woman won’t take Tylenol on the vaccines,” Trump said.
Now, the President and Secretary Kennedy are demanding more answers for America’s families.
“Historically, NIH has focused almost solely on politically safe and entirely fruitless research about the genetic drivers of autism, and that would be like studying the genetic drivers of lung cancer without looking at cigarettes, and that’s what NIH has been doing for 20 years,” Kennedy said during the conference.
“We are now replacing the institutional culture of politicized science and corruption with evidence-based medicine. NIH research teams are currently testing multiple hypotheses with no area off limits. We promise transparency as we uncover the potential causes and treatments, and we will notify the public regularly of our progress,” he added.
Kennedy announced that the FDA will begin the process of updating acetaminophen warning labels as soon as Monday, issue a physician’s notice across America, and launch a nationwide public service campaign to inform potential mothers about the negative effects of the medication. He also briefly spoke about research into a new type of folate therapy, as a potential treatment for children with autism.
Trump closed his speech by calling the autism crisis “artificially induced” and a challenge the country must confront directly.
Towards the end of the White House’s press conference, Trump invited two mothers with children who have autism on differing sides of the spectrum to speak on their own personal experiences, to which both expressed their gratitude for the research progress.
Multiple times throughout the press conference, the president sternly said about acetaminophen, “Don’t, take it. Just don’t take… and don’t give it to the baby.”