{"id":79710,"date":"2025-09-22T23:23:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T23:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/79710\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T23:23:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T23:23:07","slug":"trump-officials-unveil-highly-contentious-conclusions-on-autism-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/79710\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump officials unveil highly contentious conclusions on autism \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Trump<\/a> administration unveiled highly contentious conclusions about the causes of autism<\/a>, together with a push for research purporting to find a possible \u201ccure\u201d for the condition on Monday.<\/p>\n

After months of widely trumpeted investigations spearheaded by the health secretary, Robert F Kennedy Jr<\/a>, Donald Trump announced that pregnant women should limit their use of acetaminophen. He claimed the painkiller, which is usually branded as Tylenol in the US and commonly known as paracetamol in Europe, heightens the risk of autism when it used by pregnant women, an assertion hotly contested by scientists internationally and contradicted by studies.<\/p>\n

Speaking from the White House, flanked by Kennedy, the president said he had \u201cwaited for 20 years for this meeting \u2026\u201c and added: \u201cIt\u2019s not that everything\u2019s 100% understood or known, but I think we\u2019ve made a lot of strides.\u201d<\/p>\n

But he declared: \u201cTaking Tylenol is not good \u2026 All pregnant women should talk to their doctors about limiting the use of this medication while pregnant.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kennedy followed, announcing that the health department and US Food and Drug Administration<\/a> would work to change the label on acetaminophen risks.<\/p>\n

He also spoke about upcoming recommendations that the hepatitis B shot, currently given to newborns as part of the national vaccine standards, should be given in a delayed manner or in smaller doses, despite limited evidence of the impacts.<\/p>\n

The announcements were made by Trump amid a blaze of fanfare at the White House, in a ceremony attended by other senior administration figures.<\/p>\n

Trump, who has frequently voiced his concern over autism and said, along with Kennedy, that the US is suffering from an \u201cepidemic\u201d, flagged up a major initiative on Sunday at Charlie Kirk\u2019s<\/a> memorial in Arizona.<\/p>\n

\u201cTomorrow we\u2019re going to have one of the biggest announcement[s] \u2026 medically, I think, in the history of our country,\u201d he said. \u201cI think you\u2019re going to find it to be amazing. I think we found an answer to autism.\u201d<\/p>\n

One in 31 children aged eight had a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) \u2013 a condition denoting communication and social difficulties, along with repetitive behaviors \u2013 in the US in 2022, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That compares to about one in 150 in 2000.<\/p>\n

Kennedy, who previously peddled the theory that the condition is caused by vaccinations, has attributed the rise to \u201cenvironmental toxins\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, specialists say the increase is mainly due to increased screening, combined with evolving definitions of the disorder. They have also said the causes are predominantly dictated by genetics.<\/p>\n

Scientists in the US and UK reacted to the Tylenol link sceptically, with British physicians denouncing it as \u201cfearmongering\u201d that risked stigmatising parents of children with autism.<\/p>\n

Speaking on a call organized by Defend America Action, a campaign group, Debra Houry, a former chief medical officer and deputy director at the CDC, told journalists: \u201cAs of three weeks ago, we hadn\u2019t seen evidence that acetaminophen was linked with autism, so it\u2019s curious to know how quickly that was developed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are many studies which refute a link, but the most important was a Swedish study of 2.4m births published in 2024 which used actual sibling data and found no relationship between exposure to paracetamol [known in the US as acetaminophen] in utero and subsequent autism, ADHD or intellectual disability,\u201d said Dr Monique Botha, associate professor in social and developmental psychology at Durham University<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fearmongering will prevent women from accessing the appropriate care during pregnancy.\u201d<\/p>\n

US medical practitioners also cast doubt on the putative link with acetaminophen.<\/p>\n

Dan Jernigan, another former CDC career scientist and former director of the national center for emerging and zoonotic infectious diseases, criticised Kennedy\u2019s efforts to study autism.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were all asked to be a part of autism studies and to put together [an autism plan],\u201d he said. \u201cWe helped develop some of that. But then over time, what we saw was [Kennedy] having an increasingly top down approach, essentially \u2018my way or the highway,\u2019 with no regard again for the scientific processes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some researchers have also pleaded caution on hopes for leucovorin, which has been reportedly shown in some tests to trigger marked improvements in the speaking and understanding ability of some people with autism.<\/p>\n

Irva Hertz-Picciotto, an epidemiologist and autism specialist at the University of California, Davis, told the Washington Post that unrealistic expectations could lead to a loss of trust.<\/p>\n

\u201cI worry that it feels like everything is now tainted that comes out of the current administration,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Bruce Mirken, communications co-chair of Defend Public Health, poured cold water on the announcements in advance. \u201cWhile we don\u2019t know what he will claim today, we do know that Kennedy has a history of false statements related to autism and that the scientific evidence shows there is no \u2018autism epidemic\u2019,\u201d he said. – Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Trump administration unveiled highly contentious conclusions about the causes of autism, together with a push for research…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":79711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[11357,9,10,356,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,14162,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-79710","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-autism","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-latest-news","16":"tag-latestnews","17":"tag-main-news","18":"tag-mainnews","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-robert-f-kennedy-jr","21":"tag-top-stories","22":"tag-topstories","23":"tag-world","24":"tag-world-news","25":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79710","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=79710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/79710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/79711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=79710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=79710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=79710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}