{"id":384447,"date":"2026-03-14T07:23:22","date_gmt":"2026-03-14T07:23:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/384447\/"},"modified":"2026-03-14T07:23:22","modified_gmt":"2026-03-14T07:23:22","slug":"tylenol-use-drops-among-some-pregnant-women-after-trumps-unproven-autism-claim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/384447\/","title":{"rendered":"Tylenol use drops among some pregnant women after Trump’s unproven autism claim"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last year, President Donald Trump told pregnant women<\/a> not to take Tylenol as he promoted unproven ties between the fever reducer and autism and touted an old generic drug<\/a> as a treatment for the developmental condition.<\/p>\n

For nearly three months after that, new research found<\/a>, Tylenol orders for pregnant women showing up in emergency rooms dropped and prescriptions of the generic drug for children rose. This happened despite sharp criticism of the president\u2019s message from doctor groups saying that the drug, leucovorin, shouldn\u2019t be broadly used for autism and Tylenol is safe during pregnancy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just shows that in our country right now, health care has been politicized in a way that political messages are driving and impacting care \u2014 and not always for good,\u201d said Dr. Susan Sirota, a pediatrician in Highland Park, Illinois, who wasn\u2019t involved with the research. <\/p>\n

Doctors, who published their work Thursday in The Lancet, looked at changes in drug ordering or prescribing compared with projected trends, or what might have happened if things had continued on the same path as before the White House briefing. <\/p>\n

They found that orders for Tylenol \u2013 also known by the generic names acetaminophen and paracetamol \u2013 were 10% lower than predicted for pregnant emergency department patients aged 15 to 44. And outpatient prescriptions of leucovorin for children aged 5 to 17 were 71% higher than expected during the same study period, late September to early December. <\/p>\n

Researchers observed no similar shifts in comparable medications, suggesting the changes were directly tied to the briefing. <\/p>\n

The research had limitations. For example, it didn\u2019t capture all Tylenol use by pregnant women because most people buy the painkiller over the counter outside of a hospital setting.<\/p>\n

Still, it reflected how an unconventional news conference by a political leader could change not just patient behavior but prescribing as well, said co-author Dr. Michael Barnett.<\/p>\n

In past administrations, \u201cthere are lots of layers of approval and expert consensus\u201d before officials make big announcements about medical topics, said Barnett, who is with Brown University School of Public Health.<\/p>\n

Pregnant women generally take Tylenol for pain or fever. Untreated fevers in pregnancy, particularly in the first trimester, increase the risk for miscarriages, preterm birth and other problems, according to the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine. Some studies have raised the possibility<\/a> that taking Tylenol in pregnancy might be associated with a risk of autism, but many others haven\u2019t found a connection<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Leucovorin is a derivative of folic acid used for, among other things, reducing the toxic side effects of certain chemotherapy drugs and treating a rare blood disorder. It has also been studied for a neurological condition known as cerebral folate deficiency and for a subset of autistic children, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.<\/p>\n

The pediatrics group doesn\u2019t recommend routine use of the drug for autistic children. Early, small-scale studies have explored its use, \u201cand some findings suggest potential benefit in carefully selected cases,\u201d the group said. <\/p>\n

But evidence remains limited, the pediatrician group said. And in late January, the European Journal of Pediatrics retracted a study evaluating leucovorin as an autism treatment.<\/p>\n

Still, after the federal announcement about the drug, Sirota said some families in her practice asked about getting it for their autistic children. She educated them about the evidence, told them about the potential for side effects and didn\u2019t prescribe it. Potential side effects include irritability, nausea and vomiting and skin issues like dermatitis.<\/p>\n

Sirota said it has been hard to deal with the repercussions of government pronouncements like the ones on autism.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt feels like a pattern with our government, right? They keep building on these houses of cards that just fall down,\u201d she said. \u201cThis politicizing of medicine just in general, and moving away from science, has been so challenging.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute\u2019s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last year, President Donald Trump told pregnant women not to take Tylenol as he promoted unproven ties between…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":384448,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[274],"tags":[11357,8268,356,18,133104,3334,135,19,17,462,176054,736,790,95994,20093,176055,4077],"class_list":{"0":"post-384447","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-autism","9":"tag-domestic-news","10":"tag-donald-trump","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-emergency-care","13":"tag-general-news","14":"tag-health","15":"tag-ie","16":"tag-ireland","17":"tag-medication","18":"tag-michael-barnett","19":"tag-pain-management","20":"tag-politics","21":"tag-pregnancy-and-childbirth","22":"tag-rhode-island","23":"tag-susan-sirota","24":"tag-u-s-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116226333252107476","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=384447"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/384447\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/384448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=384447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=384447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=384447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}